


No Land But The Land

by Halfofwhatyouare



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race (US) RPF, RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: 70s Road Trip AU, F/F, Public Sex, Punk, Smut, fucking in the woods mama...and on a beach...and...., lovers to..., seriously I've outdone myself with the porn here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:08:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27725948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halfofwhatyouare/pseuds/Halfofwhatyouare
Summary: It's 1978 and Trixie and Katya are making their way to New York from Milwaukee for the trip of a lifetime. Throughout their week and in amongst the wild nights and lazy afternoons at Bob's, Katya has to face up to a few truths and Trixie needs to show a little love...
Relationships: Trixie Mattel/Katya Zamolodchikova
Comments: 23
Kudos: 51





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> H-E-A-R, bitches, I am here! Returning to provide you with some smutty, 70s dykes. They do be fuckin'. 
> 
> I'm going to post a chapter per week. Pretty proud of this one as it's a good reflection of how I properly write. Come through, poetry! I hope you all enjoy it. 
> 
> This story was a gift to C for her birthday (delete it old). I await the analysis, Boebee.

_Our lives are now entwined.  
We will fall, yes, we're together twining.  
Your nerves, your mane of the black shining horse  
And my fingers all entwined through the silky hair,  
I could feel it..._

Katya glanced to her left, through the reddish tinge of her sunglasses, at Trixie's painted nails. She wondered what would happen if she really started chipping away at her.

Her grip on the steering wheel was tight, tight enough for the whites of her knuckles to show through her winter-pale skin. The simple sight caused Katya to wriggle in her seat at the many unrelated but very much persistent thoughts flitting behind her distracted eyes, just like the passing headlights, the road lamps, the sprinkle of restaurants still open at such an hour. 

Katya hummed absently in off kiltered timing as Trixie launched forth into another rant. She honed in, instead of actually listening, on how Trixie tapped the worn out, black plastic every now and then with her middle finger to accentuate her point, how she shook her fist about in the cramped space between them during the crescendo of her vexations. Katya, slovenly and artfully dishevelled in the passenger seat, had the chance to inspect the glossy finish to her tips, the perfection. Soon to be wetted and put to use, she hoped, if Trixie’s outburst was any indication. Rage riled her up in more ways than one and together they could start a revolution if they screamed loud enough.

They had driven for six hours and had quickly learnt that their determination to reach Pittsburg by sundown was not enough fuel for them to actually do so. Several pee stops and Katya’s questionable map reading may have also set them back, but their journey down the I-94 and beyond seemingly sped by as they sang along to guilty pleasures on the radio at the top of their voices and made darker and darker jokes about being found dead in a ditch somewhere weeks later. 

Neither time nor order were Katya’s strong suits so she had begun counting Trixie’s fingers like each one would signal something to her beyond her one track minded destination. Trixie might have noticed but she didn’t veer from the topic at hand. Katya didn’t have to pay proper attention to know what Trixie was saying. Her words were vague, whereas her presence was all consuming. The specifics of her opposition to something her zine contributor had suggested were hazy like the early afternoons Katya anticipated witnessing - Trixie’s palm flattened from the push of Katya’s own, a squeaky mattress beneath them barely containing their hungover activity, the kick of shoving off their sheets to expose themselves to themselves alone. Together.

She kept imagining reaching out to pull on Trixie’s digits, to hear the click of her joints. To trigger something more physical than imagination. 

When Trixie turned off the highway in Mansfield, the skidding of the car’s tires and the sudden jolt of her parking in front of a nondescript motel was enough to push Katya into properly facing the whole thing with some kind of practicality. They had bags and keys and a very tight wallet and Katya felt an ever heightening responsibility to keep Trixie safe. She could easily rough a motherfucker up but she was the first to admit that someone else could have her by the neck if she was preoccupied by her own fancies. 

The reality of the time of night as well as them being unaccompanied kick-started her. She told Trixie to wait in her seat until she had shouldered all of their stuff and had checked they were indeed alone, and she burst out into the darkness like she owned a part of it within herself. 

She wished she did. Her carefully crafted outfit choices and hair styling and raccoon-eyed makeup ultimately did little to disguise the irrefutable fact that she was a ray of fucking sunshine and, although there was nothing wrong with that on the daily, in the middle of nowhere with no real protection against strangers - strange men - and their wayward advances, or violence beyond the occasional scrap she was used to getting into, she felt like she didn’t quite come up to scratch. 

The overpass towered above her as she glanced upwards. Solemn and fragile, a watery moon dripped silver against the stark black sky, no city lights to steal its thunder, as the sound of a few lonely cars passed and vanished. She scanned their surroundings again for good measure then signalled for Trixie to join her. They remained silent as Katya locked up the car and led the way to the motel entrance, their footsteps as deafening as their nervous, shallow breath. 

The two of them had an image to uphold. Twice over. The pressure pulled Katya one way, then the next, then to the front desk where she played the part of a normal to fade into obscurity. 

The key to their room looked heavy and dated. Trixie had it ready to slot in as soon as they found 48. A twin, but a room of their own nonetheless. Whereas before, in the car, Katya had been filled with a fizzing energy, walking the carpeted hallway sobered her. The height of Trixie’s boots made it seem like her hair was almost touching the peeling ceiling, like she was getting taller and taller the further into the labyrinth she wandered. It was silly but, at 2am, being removed from the safe, intentionally dangerous haven of their mushed together community seemed bigger than it was in Katya’s flip flop mind. She knew, as soon as they shut their door behind them, that her unease would be trapped out in the hallway too. Until that moment, however, she gripped the straps of their bags and kept her head down. 

The protrusion of Trixie’s ass in her tight black skirt was like a bribe, encouraging her to look ahead and keep going.

Their room wasn’t worth even the small fee Katya had paid and yet she would have forked out four, five times as much for the privilege of having Trixie immediately push their beds together, not a single fuck given that the scrape and noise of moving them could have been heard from the next town over.

During those occasions where Katya witnessed the Trixie that took charge, the Trixie who intimated all she came across in her feminist groups and zine meetings, she wondered if there was ever a chance that her Trixie could be the one to change things between them too. Usually, Katya didn’t mind that Trixie was too busy saving the world to focus on things a little closer to home. That night, however, the weight of being the one in control could have easily worn Katya out.

“You look exhausted. It must have been so tiring driving all that way, huh?” Trixie jibed, poking Katya in the side as she swerved past her to rummage in her rucksack. 

They had forfeited bringing clothes to sleep in for Trixie’s face products. Katya still wasn’t sure what her little jars of whatever the fuck were supposed to do but they smelled nice and tasted not too badly of chemicals whenever she ended up accidentally licking well over the boundary of Trixie’s lips, onto her cheeks, as they made out in bed. 

Katya watched Trixie take off her boots, leather jacket, skirt, t-shirt, and pile them neatly on the top of an ancient looking dresser. Katya hadn’t opened the drawers but she could tell there was a bible in there, perhaps a notepad. She smirked to herself at the notion that prayers were more thought about than thoughts themselves. America. Land of the pea-brained. 

Trixie stuck out her tongue before sauntering off to the bathroom in just her underwear. Katya’s attention very suddenly refocussed. 

She followed her in. Trixie didn’t turn around from where she was unscrewing a lid at the sink, nor did she shiver when Katya ghosted her hands around her waist to then take a firm hold of each side of her stomach. 

The mirror above the taps was cracked in the corners and there were a few suspect markings here and there. Katya stared at Trixie’s self satisfied expression instead and began to rock her hips into her, breathing into the space behind her ear where her piercings dug in to Katya’s nose. Her industrial was still a little red and agitated. Katya smiled into the kiss she pressed against her neck. She had been the one to have finally convinced her to get it. Trixie had countless studs in her ears, her nose, her nipples. But now they matched, just on opposite sides.

“Not tired anymore, I see.” Trixie quipped, swiping a balm across her lips. Katya thought it futile. 

“I’ve been wanting to fuck since the second we got on the road. You’re gonna go down on me and then you’re gonna ride my fingers until you make as much noise as those shitty little beds did when you tore up this place.” Trixie liked when Katya made fun, made something more of a particular mood. “Sound good?”

Trixie flung her head back to let out one long laugh, more akin to a scream. Katya stepped away to avoid being hit in the face. 

“Sounds like I don’t get a say in the matter.” Trixie played up to Katya’s reflection in the glass. Katya rolled her eyes, slapped her ass then went to pee, sending Trixie on her way to wait for her. 

She took all her clothes off in the bathroom, the clanging of metal and thud of leather a careless soundtrack to her hasty movements, and dropped her underwear in the sink to wash later. She had wanted the whole experience, had decided to bring only one other pair of briefs than the ones she was already wearing. Trixie had jokingly warned her that, at the rate she got wet, she should have brought five at the very least. Katya had then called her a priss when Trixie blushed at the idea that Katya would happily go without any at all.

Katya wanted her so much. She felt like she was speeding down nameless, neon signed roads again. This time, however, she was at the wheel. Swerving.

-

Katya watched in wonder with wide, febrile eyes at how deeply Trixie sank down. The press of her knuckles against Trixie’s pubic hair heated her all over again and the desperation that careened its way out of Trixie’s open, spit slicked mouth reproduced in echoes, mixed with the thud of Katya’s all too internal heartbeat. Trixie’s face was screwed, flushed. Katya lay back, hypnotised by the bounce of her heavy breasts, the thrust and twist of her hips as she fought to find the perfect angle, the kind of friction that would send her over the edge in no time and make her beg for more just as quick. 

Trixie teased Katya for her eagerness but the two of them were more alike than Trixie was open to admitting, sometimes. 

Katya scratched down Trixie’s trembling thigh, squeezed where her muscles strained to stay taut, where Katya had given her a shitty stick ‘n’ poke tattoo of a love heart. Her skin had still been bruised from where Katya had bitten her and Katya had adored how the heart, faint and messy though it was, framed the discolouration, the blues and greens blooming like dye on virgin white cotton. Katya fought the urge to bite her there once more, to interrupt the rhythm they had conducted together. She was fixed in place by Trixie’s weight, the beat of skin on skin when Trixie’s ass landed on the tops of Katya’s thighs. 

Trixie hadn’t disappointed. Katya had clambered on top of her and had sat on her face without the need for any reminders of what she desired, and she had marvelled at how they had subconsciously decided to sprawl across both of the beds as if that would properly bring them together. Trixie’s tongue had massaged over every fold, every part of her soaking cunt, until Katya had called out into the usual reticence of early morning, both cursing and celebrating her.

Katya scissored her fingers to stretch Trixie further then rubbed at her walls as fast as she could until she squealed, bringing her own fingers against herself to make furious circles on and around her clit.

Trixie came, collapsing over Katya. Her hair, where it had once been straight upright, half a can of lacquer keeping it so stupidly vertical, flopped into both of their faces and they laughed as it got in their mouths when they panted and wheezed. 

Katya brought her arms around Trixie’s broad shoulders, cuddling her into her chest until she got her second wind. Seeing Trixie come was always a novelty regardless of how long she had been responsible for it. Not solely, but integrally, importantly. Years, it might have been. Time didn’t accurately measure feeling.

She flipped them and arranged Trixie’s legs so she could straddle her thigh.

“So fucking wet. You’ll regret two pairs, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Trixie mumbled, eyes closed and chin tilted upwards so she fully sank into the comforter they had crumpled up behind her. 

“I won’t regret any of this.” 

Katya moaned as she began to buck, tweaking her own nipples and tugging on her piercings just enough to elicit a jolt that ran down to her core. 

Trixie’s skin was smooth but gave enough resistance, enough push back, especially when she twitched from a delayed aftershock. Katya mapped the drying trail of sweat from her neck to her still heaving chest, the splotches of imperfect womanhood. Individually they were dolls, witches, bitches, whores. In bed, they were dykes, if anyone on the outside caught on. The thought didn’t thrill Katya, per se, but her romancings and her pride led her astray to enjoy the word, though nowhere near as much as she enjoyed the acts which meant she would be labelled as such. 

She pushed her long black waves out of her face. She hadn’t styled her hair, deciding to leave it natural until they got to New York where it mattered what she looked like. With Trixie, she knew she could roll out of bed unshowered and Trixie would still be a total slut for her, on her knees in seconds.

“Suck on my fingers.” Katya instructed, reaching out towards Trixie's mouth without losing her momentum, feeling Trixie’s thigh getting smeared at every point of her contact. 

Trixie parted her lips immediately, no longer languid or impassive. She sucked, tongue flicking and coating Katya’s index, then her middle finger. She paused and Katya raised her brows in query, expectation. 

Trixie brought her mouth back just above Katya’s nails, opening slowly to let the spit she had collected drip out. Katya tracked it as it dribbled to her knuckles. Her breath was shaky and she planted her other hand upon Trixie’s hip, forceful and with warning. She retracted her fingers and slid them straight into Trixie, fucking her while she was still sensitive. 

She felt Trixie tense up beneath her every time she pushed in and it was self-inflicted torture to try and keep the pace of the thrusting of her hips slow and steady and synchronised. Soon enough, nonetheless, she gave up all restraint and let herself do what she wanted. It was a given that Trixie would get the utmost gratification from it too and Katya had never cared about being selfish. Selfishness was a trait reserved for men who didn’t care if a woman orgasmed. Katya made Trixie come at least twice every time they slept together and there was nothing more considerate than that.

“Get closer.” Trixie breathed and Katya, though she rarely did as she was told, shimmied up so her body came into contact with her own wrist as her movements got more fevered, more in tune with Patti Smith in her head singing ‘you like it like that, you like it like that’. Trixie’s exultation got caught in her throat and Katya watched her swallow tightly upon it, the loosening tendrils of her hair curling around her shoulders like a lover’s grip. 

Katya wasn’t able to get the same stimulation as she fucked Trixie more erratically but she felt her wetness drip out of her, and seeing smears of it on Trixie’s thigh only turned her on more. Trixie was gripping onto the sheets beneath her and Katya was instantly reminded of her initial fixation that day.

She pulled out of Trixie without warning and earned herself a distinctly bratty whine, to which she merely rolled her eyes. Biting her lip, Katya spread Trixie wider apart and got on top of her so her cunt rested below the chubby pouch of Trixie’s stomach. She reached behind her to rub Trixie’s clit and resumed her undulations, a lot more sensual and controlled this time, despite the desperation she knew they were both struggling to tame. 

Trixie’s eyelashes fluttered as she exhaled, breathing a new life into their room. She jostled Katya’s slight weight as she tilted her hips to get closer, get more, and Katya snapped, grabbing Trixie’s hand and guiding it underneath her. Trixie filled her up and soon that sensation hauled her - no direction, so unconstrained by the lack of need to harbour. 

Katya bounced pornographically, keening with every stroke inside her. Her own hand burned from the ache, from the heat, but she could tell she didn’t have long left. Trixie got louder, more demanding, and then she came and Katya kept her exactly where she was even after her own orgasm crashed into her, into Trixie by extension. She clenched around Trixie’s fingers and gazed up to the concealed sky, to the empty space of god, away from the source of her faith in Woman. 

Her reprieve ended in laughter as Trixie made a joke of her hand becoming claw-like or bitten off (“Vagina dentata, Mary.” Katya teased) and they tumbled together into entangled slumber, not bothering to clean up. They had accepted their dirt many, many years ago. Katya relished in covering herself in it from head to toe so it was there even when people couldn’t see, even when she was being gawped at. 

Sometimes she relied on outside perception, sometimes she ran from it. Trixie was usually along for the ride with her, however, and, if nothing else, that meant she could have some fucking fun.

-

Katya sat, dressed in her finest leather but bare faced for now, and attended to Trixie as she deliberated her outfit choices. They had woken later than they had planned (to the astonishment of neither of them), fucked again, showered then decided what stops on their route to make in order to arrive at Bob’s by the end of the day. 

Trixie had made the bed yet had left the curtains closed, coming off the rails though they were. Katya had offered to go find some coffee but Trixie had affected that it was better for them both to wait until they were at an actual diner before they scalded their taste buds off on motel sewerage. “So punk of you,” Katya had joked, “Choosing pleasure over pain.”

“That’s exactly my kind of punk movement and you know it.” The wink she had sent Katya’s way shouldn’t have warmed her as much as it did, lack of coffee notwithstanding. 

Katya scanned her view of Trixie, at where she was studying herself in front of the too-small mirror. She finally settled on a thrifted t-shirt she had customised, cutting holes all over it and securing them back together with safety pins, one of her favourite studded belts slung low on her hips and layered over another with dangling chains and o rings, and the skirt she had worn the day before, this time with ripped fishnets. 

“It’s missing something.” Trixie hummed to herself, playing with her earrings, all on show now she had styled her hair. She turned to the right, the left, inspected herself with diligence because her image was curated yet no less an extension - a representation - of her attitude, her fire. 

Katya wordlessly went to the bag she had packed full of accessories. There was a choker she had finished mere minutes before they had left for their trip. Others might have found it stupid, childish, even. Katya was rather proud of the belt she had hacked up and hooked strings of paper clips off of. She hadn’t seen anyone wear something similar and it was these little innovations that made her feel like she was getting somewhere, that she had achieved something in an ever changing world which decided for women just what kind of achievement they were allowed to attain and when. 

She scratched the side of her mouth, where the hole she had pierced a while back was itching to have something shoved through it again soon. She put the choker behind her, like she was a kid making an angelic promise with crossed fingers, and sauntered over to Trixie. 

“Might have just the thing.” She flashed Trixie a grin, toothy and blinding. Even when some of their people disagreed with Katya, they could never rage at her. There were no raised voices or displays of anger or stomping of steel toed boots. She would smile and they would back down. Perhaps that was what she brought to the table, what her lasting impact would be. Amenability. 

“Close your eyes.” She said.

Trixie did, a smile playing upon her features. “Is this where you finally stick a knife in me for interrupting you all the time?” 

“I can neither confirm nor deny…” Katya stepped closer so she could see the tiny hairs at the back of Trixie’s neck. Trixie hadn’t shaved any part of her head before and didn’t plan on doing either, preferring to rely on irons, lacquer and defying the laws of gravity (fuck the system) to create her styles. She could never quite straighten the baby curls at her nape. Katya bit at one, pulling on the hair so Trixie let out a high pitched yelp. Trixie swiped at her with a limp, lacklustre hand (she soaked up any kind of attention no matter how harsh) until Katya settled her again.

Katya lifted the prong of the buckle to undo the choker, careful not to tangle any of the paper clips, and held each side of it open to place softly around Trixie’s awaiting throat like she sometimes would her own hands. She secured it, adjusting to ensure the buckle was properly centred, and tugged, just once, with the pretense of testing it was strong enough to withstand their later endeavours. 

Katya trailed her fingers down from the leather to the ragged neckline of Trixie’s t-shirt, further to rest over where she felt her nipple, where she could rub over the small silver balls on each side of it. Trixie stilled completely and Katya brought her lips to her ear. 

“Much better.” Her voice was low and deep and husky, and Trixie’s stilted breaths drowned out the rain that started pattering against the window, a signal to get going and one Katya was reluctant to take heed of when the temptation to put her hand, zealous and sweaty, on Trixie’s bare breast was growing tenfold. 

Trixie got them down the I-71 eventually and they drove for a foggy hour or so, their Plastic Letters cassette - one of the very few they had with them - on replay. Katya had the window wound right down, her wrist resting on the peek of glass as she held an unlit cigarette. The wind sped through her fingers. 

She took a quick glimpse at Trixie’s polish, noting the missing black here and there on her nails. 

She turned back to watch the rain bounce off the tarmac, to hide how she was beaming, and lit up, sparking another playful argument where Trixie told her she was a disgusting incubous of cancer and Katya told her she didn’t care what The Man (or: scientists who didn’t understand anything about being cool) said, she felt healthier than ever. “That might still be the multiple orgasms talking, though.” She added, sending Trixie an overly conspiratorial wink over the dashboard.

They pulled off in Akron when they spotted ‘Bob’s Hamburg’ and thought it too coincidental a name to pass up. 

“Imagine if we saw her living a double life, serving up burgers and shit to devout Republicans.” Trixie cackled, kicking the car door shut. 

Katya patted her pocket for her wallet then joined Trixie’s side, bumping into her inconspicuously, both to acknowledge what she had said and what they couldn’t do once they got inside. They were enough of a target just by existing and, whilst they would usually ruffle a few feathers, this time it was imperative that they arrived in New York in one piece. They absolutely could not miss out on the week ahead of them.

Over coffee, a speciality burger and a couple of grilled cheeses (Trixie’s vegetarianism proved tricky but she stuck to it much better than Katya had originally given her credit for), they came up with increasingly more bizarre stories of Bob being plucked from underground New York and dropped unsuspectingly in conservative Ohio. It passed the time before they called with their ETA.

“Y’all are in for a treat tonight. Everyone’s coming over, even Juno.”

“Shit’s about to get wild.” Katya nodded to herself as she held the receiver so Trixie could listen in and respond too. Their heads were bowed and their proximity was a natural state Katya couldn’t ever imagine not flourishing in. She tried to picture what they looked like to the waitress or the middle aged couple over in the booth by the window but all she could see was who they were. 

“Tell Juno she’s stunning and that I’ve missed her alien ass. We better get going. See you later.” Trixie’s voice was much louder than Katya’s, ever so captivating in one manner or another. 

Bob warned them about the importance of parking up at the exact address she had given then said her goodbyes too. Excitement really started to bubble in Katya’s veins and she darted outside to smoke again before Trixie caught up with her and called her a poser. “And a decaying one at that.” She chirped too cheerily. 

“I am a poser and I don’t care, I like to make people stare!” Katya sang - shouted - at the top of her voice. Trixie screamed into the turbulent sky, leaning right back as if her laughter was the kind of lightning that struck and shifted and scarred and her body was its mark. 

Knowing what they were reaching at the end of their journey made Katya embrace what it took to get there and humour was forever their propellant. So she shook off the concern over being too visible and threw her hysterics out into the open, resounding and blooming like the heavy clouds above her threatening to overspill again at a moment’s notice. 

“Come on, you fucking banshee.” Trixie beckoned her over to the car. Katya lit two cigarettes and smoked them both at once, jogging over to her with a thrill from the kind of vibrancy she knew was waiting for her in New York. 

Katya was rather well off. It was no secret among everyone that her family, against all odds, supported her both financially when she needed it and with love and care and respect, as if she wasn’t a raging punk dyke. If Katya believed in miracles like her very Catholic parents did, then she would have given thanks every day for being blessed by such acceptance. Living just outside of Boston, they had taken her and her siblings on trips to New York before but she hadn’t had much chance to explore the kinds of places she was due to, the ones where she actually belonged and in which she could raise her voice, her fist, her worth. 

Trixie was going to love it, Katya thought as she listened to her suddenly finish off the X Ray Spex lyrics at full volume, beeping the car’s horn with every line. Katya threw her butts out the window. It started to rain again and they set off.

-

They spotted someone like them. They had parked up outside a convenience store in Denville, New Jersey, and had wandered the fluorescent lit aisles to find suitable components of a feeble attempt at dinner, which resulted in bags of chips and candy, cans of soda and a bottle of beer each. Their counterpart was buying booze and cigarettes and Katya couldn’t help but side eye her, to get a good look at her outfit and clock what brand she selected. 

“I’ll have a pack of those too.” Katya told the man behind the counter, who shuffled about like he was wearing slippers, ready for bed, and they were all keeping him up. Trixie huffed, moving a little nearer so their shoulders touched, and Katya smiled innocently at her before returning her attention to the woman at her other side. 

She was the spitting image of Siouxsie Sioux from afar, jet black eyebrows drawn all the way down her nose and hair choppy, sprayed and backcombed to achieve the roughed up, shaggy look. Her eyeliner was precise, the wings lifting to meet her brows and frame her accentuated crease. Like a starlet, however, she had applied a sultry red lip and overemphasised her cupid’s bow. Katya was intrigued by her makeup artistry, if nothing else. 

“Yes, I’m too beautiful to be punk. I’ve heard it before so save it.” 

Trixie audibly tutted behind her but Katya barked out a laugh. “You can’t blame me, punk isn’t pretty.”

“Neither am I. Pretty is the virginal girl wearing white on her wedding day to her childhood sweetheart. I’m about to go fuck my woman in a park.” She handed over some bills to the cashier without looking at him, like he was totally inconsequential to her, even when he spouted his clear disapproval at what she had announced so brazenly. “Want to come?” She tilted her head with a laissez faire attitude and loaded expectation, all at once.

“Sure.” Trixie said. “We were gonna go over there anyway.” Katya bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from making fun of Trixie’s iciness. 

Katya paid for their stuff and they followed Violet’s car after brief introductions. Violet had, surprisingly, approved of Trixie’s chosen surname. Trixie always got frustrated when she had to explain her intentions if someone new didn’t pick up on how it was subversive. Trixie’s whole demeanour relaxed the instant Violet recognised her, related to her, even. Katya could see the same kind of influences on Violet. Punk meets pin up doll, for women’s eyes only. 

It wasn’t far to McCarter Park. Whilst Trixie drove, Katya fed her chips until they ran out and Katya realised she hadn’t had any herself. Trixie took her hand and held it by her thigh before she had to turn off the road and park up between the tree trunks and twisted branches that obscured their view of Rockaway River, more so than the crepuscular eeriness Katya was comforted by, relieved to be wrapped in. It was safe, living amongst the shadows and the darkness. 

The further they went, the louder Violet’s voice replayed in Katya’s head, the faster her pulse raced, like Trixie’s was in tune with hers and the air between them sweetened with synchronised expectation. 

Trixie turned off the engine upon reaching their apparent final destination. She shifted in her seat and Katya tried not to prematurely imagine her grinding up against her. In front of them, Violet called out to someone sitting on the bank, perched on a rock and lax. Katya couldn’t see much apart from the faint orange glow of a cigarette and an unexpected kind of silhouette.

“Bring the beer.” Was all Trixie said before getting out. 

Katya smirked from how affected she could tell Trixie had become. Fucking in the woods was her kryptonite, reminiscent from her younger years when she had to scramble for any remnants of privacy and scraps of affection from girls who would tell her no one could ever find out about what they had done. Sometimes Katya still had to help her overcome the particular kind of shame that came with being treated like a fuck and run, even when those nameless straight girls kept coming back for more. They took and never gave, and Katya couldn’t understand it - but she certainly made up for it. 

It seemed colder, then, stepping over snapped twigs and feeling the caress of offshoots against her arms as she began to walk to the bank. The gush of water sounded like static in her ears and Katya tingled from the electricity, from the galvanisation of the atmosphere, from having Trixie guide her to the clearing and present herself to all of them as if she’d had a new lease of life in the seclusion of nature.

Pearl, Violet’s woman, was butch with a level voice and a seemingly endless supply of weed. They all smoked for a while, admiring each other. Katya and Trixie discovered Violet and Pearl were going to New York for the very same reason as they were and, as Katya’s smile widened, became goofier, she questioned just what higher power brought them all there, that exact pinpoint landing-place. It appeared monumental when it was merely coincidental but she revelled in it nonetheless, rebelled against her daytime diffidence. 

Trixie came to lean against Katya, in between her spread legs. They had all cracked open their beers and were swapping stories from past gigs they had attended, and Katya wrapped an arm over Trixie’s shoulder, her palm resting on her front. Pearl was drawling on about how she had met Violet at a local punk bar. Katya was listening but she was more entranced by the plaid pattern of her shirt, the sleeves cut off, rough and jagged. Her hair was buzzed and her brows weren’t groomed yet weren’t overly thick either, sculpted naturally by her striking bone structure. She was gentle with how she touched Violet, how she looked at her when she spoke and made her guffaw loudly. 

“How did you two meet?” Violet asked.

Katya, more blissed out than Trixie, who had responsibly only taken a few drags of Pearl’s blunt, slowly turned to face her. Trixie laughed at how creepy she was, happy to be retelling the tale. 

“Katya moved to Milwaukee on a total whim. Like, fully closed her eyes and threw a dart at a map, that kind of thing. She came to the bar I work at on the first night. Nowhere to stay, jack shit with her, really. She’d just heard about our place and rolled up. She tried chatting me up but kept calling me Tracy, Mary, Linda, even Barbara at one point. Safe to say she didn’t get in my pants that night but I let her sleep on the sofa at the commune I was at until she found her feet and we’ve been, uh, friends ever since. Now she works at the bar too and we collaborate sometimes for a zine I make.” 

Trixie ended with a little flourish and Katya held her tighter. 

“Can’t get rid of me now, Stephanie.” She crooned in Trixie’s ear, nibbling on her lobe like it was candy. 

“So you two aren’t…?” Pearl trailed off. Katya was all too aware of what the rest of that sentence entailed. 

Trixie shook her head but rubbed Katya’s thigh and squeezed her knee as if it was a gesture of absent reassurance, a validation that what they had was sufficient. Katya wondered if there was a ‘for now’ tacked on the end of it or if she was imagining words as well as sentiments. She wasn’t high enough, she decided, and held out her hand out for another drag, for something more. 

The conversation came to a natural standstill. Katya watched with hooded eyes as Violet turned into Pearl’s embrace and kissed her, her delicate hand coming up to cup Pearl’s jaw. 

“Are we going to get off to them or something?” Trixie whispered, body twisting so she could bring her mouth right next to Katya’s ear.

“They’re hot but I’d rather focus on you.”

Trixie sniggered. “You think you’re so smooth, don’t you?”

“I know I am.” Katya retorted, her quickfire wit coming back to her, helping her sober up at least a bit, or, rather, pull her mind from the metaphysical back to the tangible, the temporarily irrefutable. Trixie was biting her bottom lip, trying her best to keep her face close to Katya’s despite the awkward position, and Katya, upon sliding her hand lower over her breast, could feel a steady thump in her chest. They were alive and they were together right then and Katya was suddenly insatiable from the proof.

They watched, turning from each other, as Violet moaned and caught them in a spun web of fixation. Pearl had her pressed against the rock they had previously sat on and carefully helped her lie down, the curve of her back so erotic, even fully covered by her clothing. Trixie exhaled harshly as Pearl reached up her skirt. Slowly, so fucking slowly.

“Oh wow, this is a performance.” She mumbled and Katya smiled. She fixed Trixie in position so they were both facing Pearl and Violet properly, easing her hand lower, fingers playfully dipping just below Trixie’s waistband.

Katya’s attention was torn between Pearl pulling down Violet’s fishnets and moving her underwear to the side to get her fingers on her, and Trixie’s reactions from witnessing such a sight. 

“Come and do that to me.” Trixie whispered and Katya didn’t need any more encouragement. She hopped up to standing, urging Trixie onwards, through the bushes and the branches and back towards their car. 

They didn’t get inside. Katya backed Trixie up against the hood and pushed her roughly against it. She felt it herself, how the metal pressed into Trixie’s skin, and the phantom sensation spurred her on more than her desires alone did. She dived forwards so Trixie had to lie back, and ran her hands over every inch of her body that she possibly could. It wasn’t comfortable but neither was anything else about them and Trixie gasped in excitement anyway when Katya yanked down her tights and her underwear in one go.

She stuck two fingers in her own mouth, sucking once, twice, ensuring Trixie had the full view, before parting her labia and running them up and down, not quite touching her entrance, not quite touching her clit either, but wetting her, riling her up. It’s what Katya enjoyed the most, seeing just how unravelled and unhinged Trixie could get. 

“I don’t need teasing.” Trixie whined. Katya couldn’t disagree. Trixie was quivering already. The chill of the night’s breeze and the rustle of leaves all added to her satisfaction. And the stars, voyeuristic with a bird’s eye view, met her gaze as she spread herself wide. It was evident and Katya knew her too well - the scene was built for her and Katya played her part in amongst it all but Trixie always stole the show. 

Katya started to massage her clit, dipping in and out of her every now and then when she fancied it. Trixie clenched whenever she thought she could predict Katya’s pattern and Katya responded by switching it up all over again. Katya had to lean more of her weight onto Trixie to keep her in place on the hood but neither of them were restricted by it. Quite the opposite. Trixie angled herself to her liking and Katya wished she could have reached Trixie’s mouth to kiss her. She settled for the crook of her neck and buried herself there, amongst the smell of Trixie’s skin, the body heat they shared and the silent devotion on the tip of her tongue. 

Trixie grappled at her shoulders, digging her fingers in in time with Katya’s rhythm until Katya went too fast for her. If Katya strained, she could hear Violet and Pearl panting in the distance, until Trixie’s noises eclipsed them, her gasps more powerful than the rush of the river they were sprawled beside. Trixie’s wetness coated Katya’s fingers, a couple of droplets dripping onto the car. Katya vowed not to clean it off. She didn’t need any reminders of what they did together but such a token was too memorable to erase.

The open air encouraged Trixie to be infinitely louder than she had been at the motel and Katya emboldened her moreso. “Yes.” She hissed before biting on the tendon in Trixie’s neck, licking over her with as much passion as if she were much lower down. It was all the same to her, all as seductive. All as important. “Yes, come on, Trix.”

Trixie climaxed as her fumbling hands tried to get to Katya, too. 

-

“Shit, we’re gonna be late.”

Katya would have been offended that such a thought arose in Trixie’s mind whilst her head was between her legs but she was so fucking close that it seemed like a challenge, to finish almost instantly. 

“Hurry up, then.” Katya grimaced, rolling her neck as her eyes tried to focus on the moon, on something above her that would tether her to earth, push her down slightly. She was ascending.

Trixie sucked on her clit harder, rubbed her face all over her until Katya was grinding her pussy on her mouth. She had sat on the roof of their car with her legs open and Trixie hadn’t wasted a second in eating her out like she was serving her majesty on a metal throne, kneeling so fucking obediently that Katya had almost professed something she would have deeply regretted later. 

It was a true wonder that she hadn’t let something slip before. 

She tensed at a perfectly directed flick of Trixie’s tongue and bellowed into the night like a woman with nothing to hide. Like that in itself was enough of a confession for the time being.

Neither of them had noticed Violet and Pearl rejoining them, still wrapped up in each other but obviously interested in the show Katya was inadvertently putting on. Katya kept her eyes on Trixie as she wiped her mouth and chin with the back of her hand, and brought her knees together once Trixie gingerly got off the hood. 

“We could hear you, y’know.” Pearl smirked.

“China could hear you.” Trixie fired back playfully, Katya understood, but didn’t know at first if the others would. It was a game of Russian Roulette, how people could interpret Trixie. Katya was one of the few who dodged her bullets every time. 

“They’d be so lucky.” 

They laughed their way back to their separate cars and Pearl followed Trixie out of the park, onto the final part of their route. 

It didn’t take long before the skyscrapers and tower blocks and outlines of the notorious New York City broke up their horizon and dragged them from the outskirts, straight into the thick of it, a smoky kind of ebullience. Katya lit up and stuck her head out of the window, eyes upturned to the bars and the offices, then the clubs and restaurants and apartments that filled every inch of space to the brim. Doing so didn’t help Trixie navigate one bit but, as she remained silent on the matter, Katya assumed she was just as starstruck as she was and watched her own exhalations vanish into the ether as they sped along into their awaiting wonderland. 

After a few wrong turns, they pulled up to the address Bob had given them, having waved Violet and Pearl off at a different junction miles back. 

“They were alright.” Trixie had admitted, checking over her hair in the rear view mirror. Katya had been concentrating like her life depended on it, on the perfect smudged eyeliner and black eyeshadow she had been applying, but she didn’t miss the enormity of such an admission. Trixie was hard to please. Katya didn’t have any problem with that, however. She had huffed a laugh and applied her lipstick and shoved a spare stud earring she had found in the glove compartment into the hole at the side of her mouth, cringing and counting down the seconds until the pain would subside or when the pleasure would fully take over. 

Stepping onto the curb, Katya could hear the music from Bob’s place already. She had claimed ownership of an abandoned factory and had turned it into a hub for alternative artists, political activists, punks, dykes, homos, separatists and socialists and everything outside of the norm. From the sidewalk, it still looked empty. Bob had purposefully not fixed the broken window frames or removed the pile of bricks and timber and wiring that piled up near the sliding metal front door. Her East Village digs were supposed to be discreet but Katya supposed everyone in a close radius to the place knew just what went on there. And surely, she thought, some would turn a blind eye, but she was just as certain that some came knocking to join along for the experience, the life of a rebel no matter how big or small. 

She left Trixie to deal with the bags this time as she strutted up to bang out the secret code for entry. It was closing in on midnight but the party had only just begun and their arrival sparked a whole new buzz, starting off the excitement of the week ahead as they meant to go on. 

Trixie came up behind her, grunting from the weight, and Katya made fun of her for bringing so many boots whilst she waited for someone to let them in. She blindly grasped behind her to squeeze Trixie’s tit and then they were hauled inside by the lapels and too many hands, too many shouts of greeting, too many drinks shoved in their direction. 

Bob hugged them both and then so did seemingly a hundred other people before they could push their way through the crowd of leather clad bodies to a spare room Bob had arranged for them, where they dumped their things before immersing themselves in the throng as if they were celebrities, fucking Debbie Harry herself. Katya smirked privately around the rim of her glass at how inflated Trixie’s ego was becoming so quickly, so assuredly. Monet was praising the choker Katya had given her and Trixie was peacocking like she hadn’t had a full day of Katya’s praise and admiration and was dying for fresh recognition instead. 

Bob’s ground floor space was vast, purposed for all kinds of gatherings, and, despite their separation whilst they were catching up with friends and friends-of-friends and being introduced to plenty new faces, Katya felt close to Trixie, like she was pressed up against her and had her hand on her. Katya’s underwear was still wet from their frolic in the park and she squeezed her thighs together from the realisation that no one knew, beneath her hard exterior, how the softest part of her was for Trixie. Just Trixie. 

The last time she had been with anyone else, she had shared her with Trixie. It had been overwhelmingly hot, of course, kissing her above the woman that they had picked up together, had undressed together. Her hair had cascaded all the way down to her hips and brushing it away from her breasts had been like unwrapping her, giving her permission to flourish from outside of her cocoon. Katya loved the virgins, the newbies. Trixie said it was because of the bragging rights it gave her, that she’d turned another one, but they both understood it ran deeper than that. It was an honour to give a woman what she deserved for the first time, to welcome her to a new way of being and show her that it really could happen for her, that she was more than worthy of unconventionality.

But as she had eaten that perfect stranger out, she had only been able to look at Trixie, even as she kissed someone that wasn’t her, slipping her tongue in her mouth so carefully and curling it as she moaned. Trixie’s fingers had glided down her jumping stomach to frame Katya’s tongue and give her double the pressure and Katya had ached. 

It was early morning before she fully realised. She had bumped a line with Alaska and Willam had given her a little something too, and the hours had slipped through her unknowing fingers. Every now and then, she crashed into Trixie, who appeared more and more worse for wear, and they laughed at each other like it was their unconscious routine, their way to come back to what mattered. 

People were leaving by the time Trixie brought Juno over to say hello. They leaned against each other as if they thought they were at all stable enough and Katya smiled at how pleased Trixie seemed that Katya was as enamoured with her as she was. Trixie had met Juno only once before, after she had contributed to the zine about transsexuality, fucking up gender roles and embracing one’s inner alien in order to find solace on earth. She was a proud member of the Queens Liberation Front and Katya found it limitlessly interesting to listen to her perspectives, watch her words float between them and mingle with Katya’s own, even when they were sometimes opposing. 

They all danced and Katya didn’t know when they stopped. She woke up the next afternoon, fully clothed, with her arms wrapped around Trixie. Juno was sprawled out on the other side of their makeshift bed, her bubblegum pink face paint somehow still intact like it was, indeed, her true skin.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that week sped by. What is time?
> 
> Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

_It was the hair going through my fingers (I feel it I feel it I feel it I feel it)  
The hairs were like wires going through my body.  
That's how I died (at that Tower of Babel, they knew what they were after, they knew what they were after)  
Everything on the current moved up._

Bob’s hair was shaved as close to her scalp as possible. Katya wandered out into the main room to find Monet with a razor, buzzing away what little regrowth there was and complaining, “This isn’t what a bitch wants to be doing first thing, y’know.”

“Tough titties.” Bob replied, not looking up from whatever she was reading. 

Katya peered around to see no one else, miraculously, and the absence made her feel like she’d dreamt the previous night up and was only just coming to realise she was actually awake. 

“Hey.” She croaked, approaching the two of them gradually. Any sudden movement was too much to handle.

“Shit, and I thought Monet looked rough this morning.” 

Monet huffed and rolled her eyes, brushing Bob’s shoulders before slapping her across the head. Bob’s cackle was like a crack of thunder and Katya flinched.

“Give me a coffee and I’ll be Faye Dunaway in no time.” She joked, monotonous and deadpan, as she eased herself down to sit by Bob on an old bar stool she had no doubt stolen from some scummy dive.

“Of course.” Bob intoned, giving Monet a quick kiss in thanks before heading over to the area roughly functioning as the kitchen to start on coffee and bagels. 

They caught each other up on their respective scenes, flitting from the real issues to who was sleeping with who and who was consequently pissed about it (or overly interested), and Katya almost didn’t notice Trixie wandering in a while later, freshly showered, bare faced and bare footed.

Almost. She sensed her anywhere. All around her. Always.

“You whores better share.” Trixie demanded, coming to perch on Katya’s lap until Katya shifted and arranged them both so she could sit properly.

Bob turned back from where she was placing mugs in a row on the counter top, her eyebrows raised, to exclaim, “I can tell you’ve risen up the ranks and have your own place now, you capitalist pig. Sharing’s all we do here! Or have you forgotten what it’s like?”

“I heard all about what you share in health class, for sure.” Trixie shot back. Humour was her armour. 

Bob knew her well enough to just laugh and put her bagel on Katya’s plate.

The rest of the day was spent in anticipation of the oncoming night. Trixie decided she wanted to give herself two hours to get ready, so Katya trudged behind her, ever so loyal, and started putting her outfit together and thinking about what makeup she would do. 

“I hope that stud from the car was clean.” Trixie pestered in the way Katya pretended to resent.

“Unless you pissed on it in a moment of desperation on the road, I think it’s fine. Besides, I’m gonna switch it out for something different later, just you wait and see.”

It was a ritual, one she didn’t enjoy anywhere near as much when Trixie wasn’t with her. Her look was something she evolved as often as she could, hoping she would influence the new trends, or at least follow them with reverence following behind her, so obedient in her wake. Even in a supposedly underground movement, she often noticed a uniform and she strived to do one thing different from anyone else. If, a week or two later, she saw the same thing on another person, she was flattered nevertheless. Trixie got annoyed by it, in contrast, which only made Katya more chipper. Because being contrary was at the very root of their belief system. 

Katya pulled out everything she had brought and studied it all closely, waiting for inspiration to strike. She kept getting distracted, however, by Trixie wandering from the dresser to the cracked mirror that rested against the wall without a frame. Katya assumed she’d no doubt be the one by the end of the week who would crash into it and smash it completely. Seven years of bad luck didn’t seem too bad. Surely it was a badge of commendation for someone like her, she mused as Trixie bent over to pick up her shortest leather skirt. 

She was securing a safety pin at the side of her mouth, which was connected to several more in her ear by a drip of thin silver chains, when the realisation hit her. She had met Trixie in 1971. 

It was 1978 and she was either a blessing or a curse. But, either way, that night she was seeing her new favourite band for the first time with her very favourite person. Whatever her perspective, from the outset things were sweet as fucking pie and Trixie, as always, looked positively delectable. 

It might have been how she stood, eager for Katya’s compliments with her hand on her hip and a satisfied smugness about her, or how her platform boots gave the illusion that she was giant and statuesque and head and shoulders above the rest; or it might have been the manner in which she beckoned Katya over to her, to kiss her before they really had to leave. There was an urgency to it that left Katya wanting more. Katya couldn’t determine if time was her only keeper, in that moment and beyond. 

Trixie and Katya joined Bob, Monet and Juno out front. Katya let go of Trixie’s hand and watched her skip ahead. Bob slung her arm around her shoulder and whispered in her ear a gentle and discreet, “I know.” Being seen didn’t offer her relief like she had hoped it might have when she indulged in dreamy, rose tinted fantasies of being caught out, but it meant she didn’t have to wonder anymore if her love was blind. What came next didn’t matter because she was about to become one tiny speck in a rowdy collective, enthralled by movement and noise and driven by music, and so she was covered for one more night, at least, safe from further exposure.

She motioned zipping up her mouth and Bob nodded with more sincerity than Katya was used to from her. 

It wasn’t far to CBGB’s and soon they were standing amongst a thrumming, eager crowd waiting to get in. The thud of drums and a heavy bass followed them as they stepped into the line and the eyes of their fellow concert goers scanned them, a scrutiny Katya pretended she didn’t also partake in. Katya hoped it was with approval, the watching, perhaps even awe if they were really lucky. Her focus returned to Trixie and Juno, arm in arm and parading together like they were the headline act, and she smiled to herself despite the lurch in her stomach, the oncoming manifestations of dread she willed away in favour of better prospects for the evening. 

“Do you think they’ll play new material?” Monet asked with a childish lilt to her voice. 

Bob responded, as quick as a flash, “It’s all new material, dumbass. Their LP isn’t even out here.” 

“Yeah, if it wasn’t for me and my home planet connections,” Juno added, “You wouldn’t have even heard of them.” 

Trixie raised her hands in the air in a false act of worship. “All hail queen Juno.”

“Yes, that’s what should be happening at all times, thank you.”

It took a while for them to be allowed entry, the attendance much higher than the organisers had anticipated, but eventually Katya led the way down the grimy, graffiti covered staircase to the equally grimy music hall, where stickers and scrawlings of band names and anti-establishment messages decorated the walls. It was hard to see anything in her periphery. Trixie held onto her shoulders so they didn’t become separated as they pushed their way through the mass of people lingering at the bar, in order to get as near to the front as possible. She vaguely heard Juno behind them calling out that she would go get the drinks but Katya didn’t care one bit about anything other than seeing Poly Styrene herself, up close and personal and in the fierce as fuck flesh. 

It was a given that Trixie shared the same opinion. Katya managed to pull her so she was directly to her right and Bob and Monet managed to secure a spot to her left. Trixie slung her arm around Katya’s shoulders and kept her close. 

She shouted directly in Katya’s ear, “I’m so fucking excited, I’m gonna lose my mind!”

“Just don’t lose your hearing and you’ll be good to go.” Katya winced and made a show of being in pain from the sheer volume of Trixie’s voice, then her demonic, raucous laughter. 

“You love it when I’m loud, don’t pretend otherwise.” 

Katya sneakily reached around to pinch Trixie’s ass in response, then got roped into Bob and Monet’s conversation about how best to customise some jackets they had found for the party at the end of the week. She was grateful for the distraction. 

After Juno had returned and successfully sloshed beer over each one of them when passing along their drinks, the heat and intensity and humidity in the venue rose beyond levels of comprehension and Katya’s head began to swim. Bodies pushed and crushed against each other to fit. Katya grabbed Trixie whenever she could, as tight as she could, a silent message to show her she was practically euphoric to be sharing such an experience with her. Just as Trixie opened her mouth to say something to Katya, the house lights went down and the audience went wild. Cheering and clapping and the stomping of boots intensified into a rowdy, rising cacophony. Katya pinned her eyes to the stage merely a few feet in front of her and waited with bated breath. 

Then, the band entered in a rush, pulling on their guitars and checking the sound with screeching, one note strums. Poly stumbled onto the stage and Katya instantly understood what she had heard people say about her, that she wasn’t at all what they expected, that she was unassuming at first glance and archetypal, unconventional in both her mannerisms and her appearance, but had that presence, that something about her which didn’t at all align with her killer voice but didn’t completely contrast it either. 

Katya resented people (men in particular, of course) labelling women mysterious. Yet there she was, doing the very same thing because it was right this time.

Katya watched as Poly stood behind the mic and stared into the light shining on her like she was seeing something beyond reality. She smiled as if she had just realised she was being observed and celebrated, baring her teeth. When Trixie pointed out her infamous braces, Katya nodded absentmindedly, transfixed, and just about caught the huff of laughter against her skin, the warmth that spread from that point on her neck, down to the centre of her chest. Poly took an audibly deep breath. Katya cherished hearing it over the rioting noise of the crowd and it seemed like the kind of recollection, decades down the line, that she would be grateful for the most, despite how insignificant it might have seemed to someone who didn’t share it, who wasn’t there too. 

“Art-I-ficial!” Poly yelled before the guitars and drums began and built and everyone jumped in time with the music, with each other, their bodies overtaken. Trixie’s hold on her got dislodged by how she moved, her ecstatic bouncing, and, suddenly, it all amounted further when the saxophonist, Rudi Thompson, blasted his additions, and Katya forgot everything else apart from what that room tried to contain.

After their opener, the band went straight into Obsessed With You. Trixie grabbed onto Katya’s hand, managing to snake hers between their bumping sides, and shook it, screaming along, singing, “You’re just another figure for the sales machine!” until Katya imagined Trixie up on stage with Poly, too, in a beautifully discordant duet. 

Poly rocked her body back and forth as she shouted. Her black bowler hat was perched atop her afro ringlets and the pink granny cardigan she wore, adorned with contrasting pins, clashed with her mismatched coloured socks. In the brief reprieve before the next song, Katya wondered why any of them there that night bothered to try so hard with their outfits when Poly showed them all up without an ounce of effort.

As the band worked through their setlist, Trixie’s grip never slackened and the high Katya got from such a simple act accompanied her racing heart, her stuttered breaths, her roars of appreciation and the sweat trickling down her back, dampening her clothes and her underwear. Her feet were sore as hell, her Doc Martens not yet fully broken into, but she only became aware of it in the miniscule moments between songs. The music took her agony away.

When Poly started the next track with, “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard—” Katya pressed her face right up against Trixie’s so their noses crushed, so they could finish the line in unison.

“But I think, oh bondage, up yours!”

Katya raised their joined fists in the air, punching higher and higher until they were lifted up by the group of burly guys with mohawks behind them. They laughed together as they sang along and wrapped their arms around each other when Poly acknowledged them, pointing in their direction. Their feet never touched the floor, even during the penultimate song, until X Ray Spex left the stage before their encore of Art-I-Ficial again. 

The last note rang out. Trixie leaned back on Katya’s chest, face up to the dripping ceiling and eyes closed like she was receiving a baptism from the condensation, the result of all their activity. Katya didn’t want it to end. She let herself bask for as long as was feasible before Bob and Monet shrieked their praises and disbelief, interrupting their shared rapture. 

“That was _stunning_.” Juno added, her painted mouth hanging open. 

“Come on, let’s get to Pep’s before it’s too full.” Bob commanded and ferried them out, directing them to a liquor store for more cigarettes and booze to sneak on their walk there. 

They all talked over each other, passing their drinks around and downing as much as they could in the twenty minutes it took them. Peppermint’s lesbian bar on Grove Street wasn’t anywhere near as packed as the concert had been but, because it was so small, Bob told them they always had to get there early. 

The front of Peppermint’s was covered in posters, advertising an upcoming benefit for The National Gay Task Force, complete with a ‘hot buffet’ and a women’s only party. “I wish we were still here for that.” Trixie lamented and Katya agreed.

“You should do one of your own, or something similar. The Queens Liberation Front certainly wouldn’t turn their nose up at a donation, even if it was sent all the way from Arsecrack, Wisconsin.” Juno jested.

Katya laughed quietly as she watched Trixie pretend to stab Juno in her newly paid for tits. Juno made a loose approximation of a deflating noise and Trixie careened forward in hysterics. Her hair, even after the gig, wasn’t one inch out of place and, though her skirt had shifted so the buckles at the front were off centre, she was pristine. Polished. Katya still yearned to get her truly rough around the edges. 

Peppermint’s was homey. There was a single jukebox by the entrance and a cramped dancefloor that was already pretty much full with patrons, lesbians from butch to femme to whatever kind able to leave the outside at the door and be themselves, safely, together. 

For a non-native, Juno seemed to know everyone like the place was her second home. Katya waved her off and hurried Trixie along to the bar, grateful to have some alone time as Bob and Monet went to help Pep out.

“I still can’t quite believe all this happened— _is_ happening. Fuck.” Trixie slammed her hands down on the sticky wood, rattling a few glasses and turning more than a few heads. 

Katya bit her lip in amusement, ordered more shots than was good for them and challenged Trixie to down as many as she could in the shortest amount of time.

Once they had confidently determined that they weren’t, indeed, going to throw up everywhere, they took to the floor. Katya didn’t know what was playing but she didn’t care. She pulled Trixie in close and twirled her around and her head spun as if trying to catch up. Some of their gang back home would have passed a snide remark at them dancing to disco but Trixie, especially, always maintained that punk was ultimately about living beyond rules and expectations and Katya wholeheartedly believed exactly that too. So when a femme in a gorgeous emerald green jumpsuit put on I Feel Love, Katya threw herself almost as passionately into the music as she had done earlier that night. 

Donna Summer crooned and Katya watched Trixie close her eyes, press their bodies together and part her lips. Katya couldn’t resist taking advantage of the freedom the venue afforded them, gently cradling Trixie’s face in her hands and angling her so she could reach up and kiss her. The safety pin at the side of her mouth was more cumbersome than she had anticipated and the many shots they had downed delayed her reactions but, if ever there was one, Katya thought, that was the movie star kiss people like her never got to experience, much less see for themselves. Katya adored how her affection towards Trixie was on public display, right then, how she could suck on her bottom lip and be certain that the only harm coming from it was the pain she put herself through. 

Trixie soon became needy and whiny. Her eyes were unfocussed but the determination she possessed to get her hand into Katya’s underwear made Katya laugh from the surreptitiousness of it all. They stood out in the crowd, of course, but they also blended in, fitting amongst the other dykes so unsuspectingly that Katya riled herself up at the prospect of pushing the boundaries, discovering just what they could get away with. They both knew, in places like Peppermint’s, that the bathrooms were often monitored for ‘sexual activity’. They shared a silent agreement to try and go as far as possible on the dance floor before taking it to a cubicle. 

Katya wrapped her arms around Trixie’s broad shoulders, swaying the both of them to keep up the pretense of dancing. Trixie giggled, high pitched at the back of her throat, as she managed to wriggle her hand below Katya’s waistband and further down to where her excitation at being touched whilst so many other bodies bumped and pressed against hers was becoming increasingly obvious. 

Trixie mumbled into her mouth, “I want to get you so, _so_ wet.” Katya could hardly hear her over the music, the rush of blood in her ears, but her suggestive words superseded the lyrics booming from the jukebox, someone else’s profession of love and sensuality. Trixie’s own took precedence. 

Katya gasped as Trixie reached her properly, straining against the inside of her zipper, and rolled her hips to coincide with each stroke of Trixie’s fingers. “You always do.” She responded, delayed but no less intent.

Trixie’s first touches were cold before Katya’s heat reconditioned her. Her other hand gripped at Katya’s side, underneath the tartan of her jacket, the net mesh of her top, the clashing check print of a thrift store waistcoat she had altered. Trixie got beneath her layers. She prodded and caressed, forceful and tender, and Katya wanted nothing more than to rip everything from her, tear her down instead of chip away at her - become the beast that had been hiding in waiting. Instead, she moaned, changed the rotation of her hips as the next song lined up and bit Trixie’s lip harder than she had dared before. It was something, to hear her surprise, her yelp of indignation. 

Trixie treated her to more pressure like she was trying to sweeten her. Katya’s cheeks flamed and reddened and she rocked onto her tiptoes to test how it felt, to have Trixie’s fingers slide further before she settled back over her hood again. Trixie focussed on her clit and Katya, having thought them being surrounded would have stunted her, found that she was close so soon, so ready to come where anyone could see. And it was clear Trixie wanted it just as much. Her breath was ragged, choppy. Katya kissed her again, ignoring the tug of her piercing, ignoring it all beyond the fraction of erotic heaven they had been fortressed in. 

“I’m going to…” Katya trailed off, bringing Trixie closer so she could press her face into her neck, bite her and exhale sharply, wetly, against her dampening skin. 

Katya couldn’t imagine how she looked, how overtly it appeared that she was coming and was fucking wrecked from the intensity of it. The music changed again and the voices around them leaked back into her consciousness as she calmed down. But still the only sensation she could fully attend to was the gradual retraction of Trixie’s fingers, the discomfort of her underwear and the tremors spiking through her body. 

Trixie barely kept up the act, stepping backwards and smirking, glancing down at her hand, at where she glistened. Katya’s eyes darted from unknown face to unknown face, checking as best she could whilst she was trying to regain composure, then back to Trixie, to where she signalled for Katya to follow her. 

Katya stumbled out of the nucleus of the crowd and purposefully didn’t try to spot Bob, Monet or Juno. Trixie located the bathroom and took hold of Katya’s hand in the queue so her wetness spread onto her skin too. 

“Feeling ok?” Trixie had the gall to ask.

“You’re going to be sorry, you know that, right?” She said, rhetorical and stern, squeezing where their fingers were linked.

Trixie bit her lip, mimicking what Katya had done to her earlier, and, when a cubicle became free, she dragged Katya in with her, no consideration of propriety.

“You’re annoying me, I’m not fucking you now.” Katya affected, sniffing, when Trixie rested her back against the locked door and waited in hope for Katya to do something.

“You want me to beg, don’t you?”

Katya grinned, despite the genuine yet irrational irritation that chased her aftershocks away. “Always.”

Trixie rolled her eyes but complied because, Katya knew, she liked to convince as much as she liked to serve. “Please, Katya. It won’t take long.”

“Oh?”

“No. Getting you off where everyone could see brought me right to the edge already.”

Katya folded her arms and hunched her shoulders. Perhaps she was hostile. Perhaps she was defensive. “Show me.”

Trixie stared at Katya. To make sure she had understood her, Katya assumed. She raised her eyebrows in expectation. Trixie lifted up her skirt and pulled down her tights and underwear. Katya leaned over to take a look, unfolded her arms then planted her hands each side of Trixie’s shoulders. She licked one, long stripe from her chin to her cupid’s bow, winked then fingered her hard and fast. 

Trixie hadn’t been wrong. It took less than a minute. 

They scurried out just as the next person in line raised their fist to bang on their door, washed their hands at the sink and went back to the bar as if nothing untoward had happened. Katya bit her tongue when Bob asked them what mischief they had gotten up to and shot Trixie a glare when she replied, “Sticking it to The Man. Well, the woman in this case…” 

-

New York was cold and hostile, according to Trixie on the third day of their stay. “Fucking exhilarating though. What a scene!” 

They were wrapped up in borrowed scarves that Katya had customised with whatever she could find so they coordinated with their outfits a bit better, but the tears in her striped, frayed sweater didn’t have the desired effect with another sweater underneath. Still, there was a biting chill and Katya shivered, using that as an excuse to grab Trixie and pull her into her side, to cover up and huddle. 

They had decided to power through their hangover and see the sights, having gotten to grips with the East Village and its bustling bars, punk digs and backstreet record stores. Bob and Monet were busy chasing donors for their latest fundraiser and seeing to their black women’s group. Trixie had mentioned wanting to observe what went on there but Katya had convinced her that doing so would be encroaching on a safe space and tempted her away from the old factory with the prospects of hot chocolates with marshmallows and cream. True indulgence. Not quite capitalist, materialist fodder and so therefore completely acceptable. 

Katya sat opposite Trixie, a small round wooden table between them, the steam from their drinks wafting and curling until it dissipated. Trixie was looking out of the window at the passersby near Times Square. 

“Do you think you could move here?” Katya asked. “Join up with Bob or Juno or whoever, pick up their work, help direct a New York movement?”

Trixie huffed a laugh, tucked her chin into her chest so her nose tickled the edge of her scarf. “Strangely, no. I’m proud of what we’ve built back home. It’s all...it’s like the family I’ve always wanted. But better, in a way. Very few hierarchies.” 

“This is the point where Bob would argue that that’s because you’re at the top.” 

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Bob doesn’t know shit about how we operate.” She took a sip of her drink, pausing with the rim of the mug pressed against her stained, troubled mouth. “You don’t agree with her, do you?” Her forehead creased, her sketched out brows rather comical for how they dipped and then curved upwards in concern.

“We all know I’m the one that’s on top here, Mary.” Katya stuck her tongue out before dipping and flicking it to catch some of the cream left floating on the surface of her chocolate. 

The concert the night before had been even better than the opening one, the band shaking off any nerves or uncertainty and fully coming into themselves and their quirks, an indication of what the rest of their residency would involve. The upcoming show that evening made Katya jittery with anticipation when she thought about it. As much as it was uncomfortable for Trixie to start pressing her about something that Katya had hidden resentments towards (though not for the reasons Trixie would have imagined), Katya was no less deterred from her anticipatory state. 

She managed to successfully swerve the conversation away, back to their usual smutty nonsense, and the rest of the day they shared passed with the trudge of their clunky boots up and down innumerate avenues, the parallel and perpendicular patterns they made merely a faint imprint on the city’s infrastructure. 

By the time they got back to Bob’s, Katya was exhausted. Her feet ached and her leg muscles felt like they were about to give up on her completely. Trixie made fun of her for wanting a nap before they went out again but happily obliged when Katya invited her to join her on top of the lumpy mattress, arms open wide.

It was still cold enough that they needed to leave on their outer layers. Katya burrowed under the sheets and waited for Trixie’s body heat to bring her some relief. Her teeth chattered and she trembled, rubbing her socked feet together like a lonely cricket calling out in its own way. Holding Trixie had always been enough but now, though she resisted as best she could, her dark thoughts swirled, the kind that urged her to possess her, claim her as her own. 

Free love, Katya mused before she drifted off, cost her more than she had bargained for.

-

They were back at Peppermint’s, post show, and Katya was spiralling as if she had been dropped by the edge of a whirlpool. She was powerless, unable to defy the pull of it.

Juno was cackling in her ear, remarking something about lobster thermidor and some other shit she couldn’t quite grasp, and Trixie was doubled over on the other side of her. Katya wasn’t able to squint enough to see what Bob was up to, entertaining some of the band members as Poly slumped at the bar with Monet, who was looking rather out of her depth, which was novelty enough were it not for the fact that they were hanging out with X Ray Spex and Katya was totally, wholly, gobsmackingly fucked. 

She was more than old enough to know not to accept something she wasn’t certain of but the whole mood of the night called for a bit of reckless behaviour and when a gorgeous woman in next to no clothing offered her a hit in exchange for a pack of cigs, she was loath not to take it. Trixie had grabbed her soon after but the damage had been done and so she embraced the sensations washing over her, leading her to where she couldn’t control them. 

Katya found herself listening to Poly describe the hallucinations she often experienced, nursing a strong drink of her own and staring into her glass as if it was more kaleidoscopic than it probably was. She saw patterns in everything but sometimes life really was very plain. Yet, right then, she could see colour and opportunity and the kind of strange view of the world that enticed her to delve into her own strangeness, too. Poly said she came out of her visions as quickly as she got into them and Katya wondered if she herself would try to stay, to envelope and hem herself in for a bit of intrigue whenever it presented itself. She asked Poly what else she saw but never got an answer. 

She blinked and she was back on the dancefloor with Trixie loose and drunk in her arms, exclaiming over the music that she’d sure need looking after when they got in. Hair holding back, glasses of water, the whole shebang. 

Katya snickered to herself. “I’m your husband, aren’t I? Always tucking you in, always keeping you safe, eh? The fuckin’ breadwinner, baby! Can’t drive though. Damn...I should get a _motorcycle_!”

“Please don’t.” Trixie grabbed onto her hands, pleading. She grinned and Katya’s heart, red and thumping, burst open, throwing its contents out all over the floor, where Trixie stubbornly continued to stomp from side to side in time with the beat. 

“And _you_! You’re my wife. In all but name and, like, legality and shit. Fuck, how would a veil fit over your hair though? We’d have to cut a big strip or you’d have to look normal for once, or we’d just get married in leather in Vegas ‘cause they don’t give a shit there, right, about what people look like?”

“Katya—”

Katya braced herself on Trixie’s shoulders, doubling over in hysterics. She closed her eyes as if that would stop everything else, project herself into the darkness, the nothing. Her face pressed into Trixie’s chest. She could feel her own manic exhalations against her and then, after that, things became clouded, dense and abstruse.

The racket of Bob’s front door, the chatter of half a dozen people listening to records in the main room and the clang of bottles and glasses in the kitchen space sounded like distant imaginings but, when she turned her head one way, then the other, her home for the week came back into focus and she widened her eyes to take it all in. 

Whoever was beside her directed her to one of the old sofas where Courtney, Alaska and Willam were lounging and Katya heard Trixie’s directive tone instruct them not to give her “a fucking thing” as she was out of her head enough already. Katya whiled away god knows how long recounting the night’s events (those she could remember) and it boosted her ego to no end when the other three sat, all attentive and more than impressed by how easily Katya had seemed to have acclimatised to the additions to their group for the night. 

“That’s so cool.” Courtney gushed.

“That could have been us, rubbing shoulders - or other body parts - with the band if grandma over here hadn’t decided she was done in.” Willam grumbled, shoving her finger in Alaska’s direction. 

Katya tilted her head back to rest against the cushions, the bickering that broke out a comfort, a white noise, until Trixie attended to her and the race of her own pulse and Trixie’s questioning overrode everything else.

“What the hell did you take that’s got you like this?”

Katya didn’t anticipate her anger and suddenly she couldn’t shake the thought that she had done something inexplicably wrong. 

She retreated before she undoubtedly made Trixie even more unhappy with her, got undressed and collapsed into bed to sleep off whatever had unfolded without her fully being aware of it. She dipped in and out of consciousness and came to when the covers were pulled back and Trixie got in. Katya held her breath, waited to see if Trixie would sidle up beside her and nudge her for a cuddle like usual. But that didn’t come. Still, Katya waited until she could no longer remain awake. As she drifted off for the final time before daybreak, uncontrollable nausea knocked through her and dread lay in the space between her and Trixie, a silent and threatening barrier.

It was mid afternoon before she roused. She patted the mattress next to her, blindly and with lethargy, not coming into contact with Trixie’s curves. She gripped the sheets instead and swallowed the bile rising up her throat, rolling through her stomach. Groaning into the emptiness, she tried to stretch and then listened out for any sign of movement in the main space or neighbouring rooms. There were shuffles and clatters and voices but the specific one she sought out didn’t reach her desperate ears. It took all her strength not to tunnel back down, hide until Trixie had no choice but to find her, rescue her, perhaps. She had to face up to things, however, face her morning-after reality. 

There were a few unfamiliar people in the main space, and a fair few hungover bodies slumped in bean bags and on tatty futons. The chatter between everyone was hushed and slow, a contrast to how it was at night when it filled the room until the walls were fit to burst. Katya’s eyes darted to find Trixie but landed on Bob and Monet first, who were both looking at her with far more concern than she wanted. 

They were leaning against a pillar, its exposed brickwork unintentionally trendy, and Bob had her arm around Monet’s waist. Monet near-on cringed upon first sight of Katya and Katya would have completely freaked were it not for Bob’s apparent deeper understanding.

“Mornin’, muff munchers.” She called out for lack of anything better to offer.

Bob chuckled and asked if she wanted coffee and food. Katya sat with Monet in the kitchen as she waited, making small talk as best she could. 

“Trixie alright?” She queried when she felt she had run out of things to say and when the air in her lungs threatened to suffocate her from the inside out.

“She’s with Juno in the back, I think.” Bob responded. Always clever, she could navigate every kind of tricky situation with more competence and neutrality than a diplomat and Katya would have admired her, right then, were it not for the fact that her anxiety skyrocketed from her very specific evasion. 

“Ok. Er...Should I…?” Katya motioned behind her, her thumb stuck out. She had the sudden urge to suck it.

“Go get showered first, I’m sure you stink. And there won’t be much water left soon.” Monet warned, the corner of her mouth upturned from her playful insult. 

Katya made her way down one of the hallways, listening out for Trixie’s crazy, squawking laugh or her loud admonishments, her vocal opinions. Silence met her instead and she rushed to the bathroom to turn the shower on, to hear something other than her own voice telling her she was fucked.

It was turning dark outside by the time Trixie surfaced, Juno’s painted hand in hers, and she was all done up, ready for the show. Katya took it as a good omen that she was wearing the dress Katya had helped her make, plain black with chains and metal spikes detailed on the shoulders. Her tights were opaque but ripped and she wore her trusty platforms. She looked beautiful, with black lips and giant triangular eyeliner. But she had drawn on her eyebrows a little thicker, more severe, and Katya worried all over again that something dire was about to come to light. 

“You’re going out like that?” Trixie raised a brow.

Katya looked down at where she hadn’t realised she’d tucked her skirt into her underwear. “It’s a new trend I’m starting.” She said, though quickly tugged on it to get it out and resting against her cold, bare thighs again. 

“Don’t think I’ll be getting my fanny out tonight either.” Juno exclaimed, lighting up a cigarette and posing, giving Katya a chance to compliment her blue skin and massive bouffant and beg her, please, to give her just a glimpse. “Snatch hounds, the both of you.” She mockingly chastised them then let them trail behind her before they met up with the rest of the gang and left for CBGB’s in a cloud of smoke. 

That night was the busiest yet and, as they joined the queue, Katya caught a glimpse of Violet and Pearl nearer the front. She hadn’t seen them before then and had wondered what had come of them. She informed Trixie who, to her surprise, decided that they should try and stand near them and invite them back to Bob’s after the show. 

“You sure?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” Trixie bit back. Katya steadfastly dropped the matter and tried to turn her attention to the wider group’s conversation. She couldn’t blame herself, however, for not feeling up to debating which members of The Runaways were definitely of the sapphic persuasion. It was obvious anyway. She caught Bob’s eye once or twice but wasn’t overly comforted by her pitying smile. 

They got down the stairs and Katya immersed herself in the crowd, tried to clamour at the thrill of being amongst her people and apart from all despair. 

Violet and Pearl had situated themselves by the far right wall. The front few rows were already filled with awaiting fans. Trixie hurried to get a few drinks in whilst Bob and Monet spotted a group of friends they hadn’t seen that week before either. Katya decided to bite the bullet and beckoned Juno to follow her over to Violet and Pearl, playing Trixie at whatever her own game was transpiring to be. She introduced Juno and glanced to where Trixie was watching her like a hawk. The base of her neck prickled when she turned back to Violet and Pearl’s warm hellos. 

Juno and Violet quickly got to discussing Juno’s aesthetic so Katya asked Pearl what they had gotten up to since they last saw “way too much” of each other.

Pearl chuckled deeply. “Violet ended up spatting with some of her friends. It was a whole thing. We’re all sorted now, though, so we can finally have some fun,” She brought her face closer to Katya’s conspiratorially, “Outside of the bedroom.” 

Katya huffed a laugh but couldn’t resist checking Trixie at the bar. She was leaning over, passing the server a couple of bills. Her cleavage was on full display and Katya felt exposed in distant response, especially when Pearl wolf whistled, catching her line of sight. 

When Trixie rejoined them, she passed each of them a drink. Except Katya. 

“Thank you so much, Trixie.” Katya pretended to clink her bottle against Juno’s. “What the fuck?” She glared, wide eyed and with her metaphorical hackles raised. 

“Well, seeing as you can’t handle your shit...” 

Katya opened her mouth to really let rip, yet thought better of it at the last second. She didn’t want to argue with Trixie at all but certainly not in public, in front of such a large audience. She was uncovered and bare enough as it was. Having all eyes on her was the furthest from her intention. All she craved was Trixie, undivided. Unbarred. 

Katya was thankfully still able to enjoy the show, perhaps even more so with the need for something to help her lose herself temporarily, for something to immerse herself in which wasn’t her own shit, or Trixie’s. She sang equally off key with Juno and wrapped her arms around Violet’s tiny waist as they jumped up and down together and, though it wasn’t much, it seemed monumental when Trixie reached out and squeezed her hand in time with the bass drum during the band’s encore. A glimmer of hope that repair wasn’t out of reach.

Trixie did, true to word, invite Violet and Pearl to Bob’s and spent the whole walk back making herself the centre of attention and conversation. Katya, with little chance or desire for input, let her mind wander and likened Trixie to a proud bird showing off its feathers, hoping for a mate. Or two. 

Katya’s neck hurt from how she was angling herself towards Trixie to study what she was doing. The rush of attending such an incredible concert was fast wearing off. She was partly relieved to get back and sit down, yet having to face Trixie switching on her charm in an obvious attempt to seduce was anything but pleasant for her. 

Katya tried to distract herself with the pile of vinyls by the record player, asking the stranger who was sat cross legged to the right of it for any recommendations of male bands whose lyrics weren’t too misogynistic. “It’s slim pickings out there.” She shook her head in disapproval and the woman tittered delicately before concurring, fidgeting with her layered choker.

Before she had a chance to hatch a response, a pointed cough from above interrupted her. Katya tracked up from her stockinged feet to the rips exposing parts of her shins and the rippled skin of her inner thighs. Her hem was short and left little to the imagination and her dress - the dress that Katya had helped make - emphasised her figure enough to make the strongest resolve crumble. 

Trixie was trying her very hardest to appear nonchalant. “Violet and Pearl are gonna go light up out back. Wanna come?” 

Katya nodded and left the other woman by the record player forgotten about just as quickly as she had picked up conversation with her.

There were a selection of abandoned office chairs and old work benches positioned in a rough circle around a rusty incinerator bin in the small alley behind the factory building. Pearl got to work striking up a fire before rolling a few joints and passing them around. The four of them sat close together. Pearl had her arm around Violet so they shared their body heat and watching them made Katya feel frigid and numb from how she and Trixie weren’t mirroring them, how awkward she found it, being uncertain of how to approach her, how to touch her. 

Their thighs pressed against one another’s but Trixie tilted away from her, pushing her chest out in Violet and Pearl’s direction. Katya felt her shiver, nonetheless, as the night’s breeze scratched away at them, one blow at a time. 

Katya eventually worked out that, for all Trixie’s bragging, she hadn’t told Violet and Pearl about their night out with the band. It all added to Katya’s confusion over just what Trixie was playing at (just what about that night had set Trixie off?) so she broached the subject, ignorant to Violet and Pearl’s reactions because she was blinded by the white light sear of Trixie’s. Maybe it was because she had stolen their attention or maybe it was because Katya was blatantly referencing that which they hadn’t spoken of since. And though little time had passed, in the grand scheme of things, Katya realised it was the longest they had ever gone without addressing an issue. 

At the bar, they ran things like clockwork, seamless and with a failsafe routine, and Katya happily let Trixie have final decisions with anything to do with the zine. That was her passion project, her purpose and calling, and Katya wouldn’t have ever considered operating otherwise. The zine wasn’t hers to influence or criticise and Trixie ultimately knew best, although sometimes Katya didn’t totally agree with some of the content. She admired Trixie’s vision even when she yearned for it to be turned on her. 

“Shit, you cool cat. What was Poly like?” Violet jutted forwards, her feline eyes hungry for gossip. 

Katya explained as much as she could with Trixie so still and pre-explosive beside her. “I can’t remember anything else, I was wasted, but it was pretty fuckin’ rad.” 

“I’m even more pissed we missed this gig now. I’m gonna kill Fame, skin her alive.” 

“Ok, calm down, rebel girl. Let’s not start world war three when we’ve just got things right again.” Pearl, mellow and level headed, tempered her.

“But—” 

“But nothing. Anyway, there’s still tomorrow night. I’m sure you can work your magic and slink your way into the after party.” 

Katya smiled at how well Pearl could handle Violet and how she saw flickers of herself and Trixie in their subtle affection, their fire, their durable knowledge of each other. It inspired her to place her hand on Trixie’s knee and press her fingertips in as if testing she hadn’t turned to stone. 

Katya didn’t smoke any weed, conscious in a way she never would have been before, not caring if anyone else had a problem with her recreational uses. She had to hand it to her - Trixie was fucking special. She sipped her beer, making the bottle last five times as long as usual, and placed herself on the outskirts, looking in on the others becoming more intoxicated. She hoped Trixie’s tongue would loosen, in more ways than one. 

Eventually, when conversation turned dry in time with Katya’s throat and tired eyes, Violet, all forthcoming, asked to stay the night and if the two of them were up for some fun. 

“I sure am.” Trixie straightened her posture and raised her head as if she was trying to rise above Katya and her own resentments.

“Great.” Pearl smiled, all dreamy and slow. 

Katya headed inside, hands frozen and stiff against the door handles. She didn’t want to move, to go through with anything. If she said no, it would be questioned. If she said yes, it would be seen as fuel. 

She hung about in the corridor, unsure of how to place her body, how to stand when she only had the energy to cower. Someone brushed past her to get to a bedroom but she barely noticed. Trixie was swaying on her feet, rather performatively if Katya knew her tactics (which she did, she did she did she did), so Pearl had to hold her. Violet careened towards Katya, like she had been holding back before, and Katya made a valiant effort not to consciously recoil.

“You ok?” Violet asked, peering at her from above. She was tall and slender and the type of woman men found too intimidating, in so much as they would want to beat her down, keep her small. 

Katya forced a smile. “Yeah…” 

“Cut the shit, what’s gone on with you and Barbie? She’s not been all over you like last time.” 

The back door crashed open before Katya could find a suitable response and Trixie and Pearl, appearing conjoined, cackled together uncontrollably. At any other time, Katya would have delighted in the sight but it all felt wrong and, at such a turning point, it was clear she had to speak up to sort things out.

“I’m gonna head to bed actually, guys. I’m not feeling it.”

Trixie’s head snapped up from where she had lolled and slumped against Pearl’s shoulder. “Oh? Well, I guess it’s only drugs nowadays that make you bold.”

Katya shifted from one foot to the other. Violet whispered to Pearl to leave them be for a bit and Pearl, in a world of her own, had to be pulled by her forearm to move with the urgency of the matter. 

Katya watched Violet and Pearl scamper back to the main space before she beckoned Trixie to follow her to their room. She blindly trusted that Trixie would be there when she stopped in the centre of the floor, upon a threadbare rug that did very little to actually decorate. It was an inconsequential detail to note, Katya reflected, but she was in survival mode and so she clung to such a bland thought in order to try and regulate herself. A semblance of normality. 

She took a deep breath and turned around and Trixie closed the rickety door behind her. They were shut in and Katya was bursting to get everything out in the open.

“What’s the deal, Trix?” She instigated.

Trixie rested against the door, tilting her head back and crossing her arms behind her. It didn’t look comfortable. Katya reminded herself that they were never comfortable.

“You really don’t remember what you…?” All of Trixie’s performances fell away. Underneath her bravado and her flirtation and the spikes of her choker, her dress, her attitude, lay an uncertainty and, much to Katya’s despair, untampered hurt, the kind that claimed her face for its own.

“Was it really so awful? Whatever it was, I—” 

Trixie interrupted her. “It’s not that it was _awful_ , it’s that...it’s that it wasn’t real, wasn’t genuine.” She looked to the ground and it wasn’t time, not yet, but Katya ached to touch her, hold her shame and embarrassment and upset so Trixie didn’t need to carry it. 

Romance had elevated her selflessness, her empathy. It did little to solve her problems, however.

“Trix, p-please,” She stuttered over such an unfamiliar word, “Just tell me what happened so I can fix it. I hate not, y’know, not, not being in tune with you.”

Katya stepped forward, too slow for how much she wanted to leap to Trixie’s rescue. Trixie didn’t shy away when Katya tapped her side, asking for a pittance of kindness. Trixie moved off from the door, freeing her hands to bring them to meet Katya’s halfway. Katya linked their fingers, relished in the brush of skin against skin, the crush of bone against bone as they gripped each other tighter, sank back into a common touch. 

“You called me your wife, said you were my husband.” 

“I know.”

Trixie sighed with impatience. “Then you looked like you’d been possessed or something. Freaky, freaky shit. You were out of it, muttering at first then getting louder and louder, ranting about wanting to be with me forever, loving me beyond how men and women do. Everyone heard you, even over the music, how you were so in love with me that you wanted to run our car off the road. How you would marry me tomorrow if you were allowed.” Katya squinted so she didn’t miss witnessing the faintest smile play upon her features. “If you hadn’t then shouted ‘fuck patriarchal traditions though’ right after, I would have seriously considered you an imposter.” 

Katya huffed a weak laugh. “No, that sure sounds like me.” She reached up to cup Trixie’s cheek, stare her down. Her palm was sweaty, her skin ran cold, but that warmth she always possessed around Trixie came back in full febrility. “All of it.”

Trixie exhaled sharply through her nose, pulled back out of Katya’s hold and shook her head. “You were out of your mind. You’ve never said shit like that before, to me or to anyone else.” 

Katya rubbed at her forehead with the heel of her palm. She became acutely aware of the grime of the city, the music venue, the whole day, sticking to her. She closed her eyes and braced herself for what she was about to admit. “I don’t know how I haven’t. Can’t keep a secret usually.”

“Don’t play me, you sack of shit.”

“For once, I’m not. I’m serious.”

Trixie sat on the edge of the bed and dumped her head in her hands, as if Katya had filled it to the brim with nonsense and it was getting too heavy to hold up on its own. Katya looked around the room once again, searching for something of use, something to distract her from Trixie’s disbelief. 

She didn’t blame her, of course. In Trixie’s mind, Katya had never given any indication that she wasn’t happy with what they had going on. And she wasn’t unhappy, per se, so she hadn’t been acting under false pretences. She treated every second in Trixie’s presence like a trip of a lifetime - Trixie had taken her places she had never fully anticipated or actualised for herself alone - but she imagined how their borders and boundaries could change, how truly together they could be, and then she ran with it and couldn’t stop, even when she thought she wanted to, even when she knew she didn’t. 

“So if you’re serious, why haven’t you said something before? Why do I just get the drunken scraps of a declaration and the shame of it not even being remembered? Surely if you were ‘in love’ with me then you’d treat it more preciously, like I’m really worth it.”

Her first instinct was to self-deprecate and flog herself right before Trixie as if that would prove she wasn’t malicious in her intent, merely undeserving and reprehensible and not to be given credit for possessing any emotional maturity. Lower than low, both in morals and Trixie’s opinion, she appeared in her own reflection. Her mind’s eye had perfect vision. Her mouth had imperfect formulation.

Katya stopped herself from pacing. She clamped herself to a standstill and hugged her torso. “I thought it would ruin everything. We work together, we spend almost all of our free time together, we do all the same stuff. We exist like we’re intertwined sometimes. My life could be swapped for yours and it wouldn’t make much difference. And I love that, but you can see how, uh, how it could fuckin’ explode if I poured my heart out and you didn’t feel the same. Then we’d be separate and I couldn’t ever, ever risk that.” She swallowed hard around the stone in her throat, the chokehold of Trixie’s phantom hand. “I love you too much to lose you.”

Katya stared as Trixie started to smile. It was sad but Katya hoped that the effort signposted a way out of their pothole rupture. 

“This is...a lot.”

Katya nodded and asked if she could sit with her. 

“Let’s lie down. I’m tired.” Trixie said and as soon as she did, Katya saw the bags under her eyes, felt the same exhaustion overtake her too. 

Usually, they would have undressed completely. Katya carefully took off what she could without giving Trixie any ideas or wrong impressions. She had done enough of that already. She left some of her clothes in a rumpled pile and got under the covers, keeping plenty of distance from Trixie. 

Trixie huffed in frustration at how the details on her dress dug in, pierced her. Katya bit her lip to try and cloak the brief reprieve of her amusement until she couldn’t contain the rasp of laughter as Trixie sat bolt upright with an irked curse. Trixie took the damn thing off, throwing it across the room until it hit the wall and dropped in a puddle of black material. When she wiggled back down beneath the sheets, Trixie faced her and placed the flat of her palm against the space on her pillow which Katya would have otherwise occupied. Katya fixed her gaze on Trixie’s fingers.

“How long have you been keeping this to yourself, then?” 

“I don’t know.” She answered. It was the truth, though it did very little to help Trixie out. 

“You’ve been picturing me in a veil while I’ve been thinking you’ve been fantasising about me in, like, hardcore bondage gear.” Trixie ribbed. “I’ve mistaken you for the wrong type of lesbian.”

“Sorry to disappoint. I’m not the wild child you signed up for.” 

Trixie pressed her face into the pillow, not enough to smother herself, but to hide so Katya couldn’t determine her expression. “I didn’t say I was disappointed.” Her words were muffled.

That took Katya by surprise. A vulnerable incredulousness tinged her tone. “You’re not?”

“No.” She turned onto her back and Katya tracked the movement of her face, the length of her lashes, still doubly coated in mascara. 

When it seemed like Trixie wasn’t ready to elaborate, Katya eased deeper, her ribs expanding against the mattress, the tension in her neck slipping away from her. She didn’t know if it was due to return but she welcomed its temporary departure. Closing her eyes, the respite she so belatedly needed crept at her edges and she sensed herself sinking into a soothing darkness. Katya wasn’t certain until morning, when she could see it in the light of day, but she felt Trixie shift and place her hand softly on top of hers, coming back to her once more.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the last bit! Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy how this ends.
> 
> I have something in the works for Christmas time and beyond so, depending on how much I write this weekend, I might start posting it next week :)

_I tried to stop it but it was too warm, too unbelievably smooth  
Like playing in the sea, in the sea of possibility.  
The possibility was a blade, a shiny blade.   
I hold the key to the sea of possibilities.  
There's no land but the land._

There was a knock at the door, polite though persistent. Katya groaned and tried to stretch but a familiar weight pinned her down. Trixie’s hair had softened and flattened and was spread out all over the both of them from where she lay on Katya’s awakening chest. When the knocking didn’t stop, Katya called out a hoarse, “Yeah? ‘M still asleep.”

Trixie flinched at the sudden noise and stirred a lot more abruptly than she had probably bargained for. 

In burst Violet and Pearl with far too much glee on their faces for such an early hour. “Oh thank fuck. We were, like, freakin’ ‘cause there was still no sign of you. I see why now.” Violet cocked her hip, her hands on each side of her waist, and looked increasingly smug when Trixie rolled away from Katya too suddenly to indicate anything other than being caught in the act. Katya wished Violet had indeed walked in on something more than she had. 

“What time is it?” Katya asked, groggy and off kilter. 

“Time to dish the dirt, I think.” Violet guffawed, especially when Trixie burrowed entirely under the sheets. 

“Three.” Pearl supplied, much more helpfully. 

“Shit.”

Violet and Pearl chatted away with her about where they had slept, how much they liked Bob’s place and who they’d ran into and got acquainted with, as if they weren’t lingering over an awkward intrusion, a moment cut short. Trixie slid her shin against Katya’s and pressed, sending her message of ‘tell these two monsters to fuck off right now’ without being detected, and Katya tried not to smirk as Violet made a point of lamenting how late they must have been up. Katya purposefully flexed her foot so her leg moved further into Trixie’s contact, an unnoticed sign of reception, and feigned an over the top yawn.

Pearl, more than Violet, soon clocked they had overstayed their welcome and Katya groaned again as she finally lugged Violet out the door, banging it shut behind her. 

“You can come out now.” 

Trixie’s head popped up from her cocoon but Katya didn’t get long to study her or to try and establish where she was to go from thereon out. Trixie turned over and shimmied until she was cosy on her side, facing away from Katya’s questioning, how she radiated her limbo so obviously, she felt, that she wished she could disappear, become totally irrelevant if only so she could be certain of her state (her fate). 

For all she wanted to formulate something useful, a way to explain her rationale throughout the previous months (years, various lifetimes and incarnations), her words had stung Trixie. The only alternative she had was the harmoniousness of physicality. It was a good fall back, if nothing else, and she had descended into hopelessness a long time ago. Trixie still didn’t know the power she held over her. 

An abrupt, unforgiving swoop in her stomach compelled her to act. Katya missed how they joined and combined, a mobius history and figuration. It was a dilatory movement she made as she second guessed herself and how it would be received, but passion found its way through her hesitance, winding its careful fingers around Trixie’s waist, tending to her contours and smoothing her creases, the crumple of her caving in. As Katya held her to her chest, she kissed the back of her neck for the first time in what, to her, felt like centuries, and she berated every tragic minute that she had left Trixie to simmer without some simple adoration. 

“Can’t I do this anymore?” She whispered, a plea. It didn’t quite make sense, in her mind or when she spoke it aloud. 

Inhaling Trixie’s scent, alluring in its familiarity, Katya smiled out her relief when she wasn’t denied. Trixie took her hand and led it down, beneath the fine hairs below her stomach, between her thighs. Katya ran her fingers up the smooth plains of Trixie’s skin where it became heated and damp and willing, and Trixie enclosed her hand, trapping it against her so she could tilt her hips and use Katya, even such a small part of her, for her pleasure. Katya’s mouth fell open. She breathed in Trixie’s granting of her absolution and lost any thought that didn’t revolve around the rub of Trixie’s cunt against the side of her bent thumb and the edge of where her wrist met her hand. 

Katya didn’t need to see Trixie’s face to know what she looked like. She wiggled free when she ached too much and brought her fingers right to her instead, massaging her clit whilst she continued to buck. She exhaled all her anguish against Trixie’s nape and, though the angle was awkward and made her tire faster than if they were front to front, the curve of Trixie’s back, one of all the parts of her that she knew better than anything else, reminded Katya of their usual straightforwardness, that such an ingrained pattern of being couldn’t so easily be reformed. 

They were friends, first and foremost, and Katya realised that their understanding of each other was what made them so charged in bed. She couldn’t deny it if Trixie asked - she had no interest in being with anyone else anymore and that was the simplest fact. And it seemed unthinkable, as she slid two fingers inside Trixie, how she could be afraid of it. In Sunday school, she had been taught that the truth would set her free. She hadn’t believed it before now. They made their own creed with gasps and orgasms and shook with bountiful revelations of pleasure into a new verity, omniscient like they were flung out of heaven, testing out life on earth to see if it was worth it. 

Trixie rolled over and crashed into her and Katya cherished the gravity of joy roaming her body, arched to meet it and give herself up. 

Once Trixie had kissed her fevered mouth, she crawled back, a pounce in reverse, eyes alight and a vessel for the sincerity of what lay behind them. She slunk to Katya’s feet, to where she had forgotten to take a sock off the night before. Katya hadn’t realised amongst everything else. Trixie leant her cheek against Katya’s bare foot, then bit at her ankle and kissed the protruding bone there. A mind wipe. Trixie poured her kisses over every pore until she met Katya’s lips, dry from parting and panting and longing. Her hand trailed Katya’s neck, down like heartburn to her sternum, to the last swell of her until she held her breath in readiness, whole and ripe for Trixie’s touch. 

Trixie didn’t stop kissing her through it. Even when Katya told her to fuck her harder, she had to do so through two sets of tongue and teeth. It took a while longer than usual for Katya to get close. She almost couldn’t give time to her body’s reactions, either because she didn’t want it to end or because she’d never have that kind of beginning again. 

When it happened, the little death to their rift, Katya caught a single tear running down to meet Trixie’s jaw. She let one out to join it. Trixie wiped them away and kissed her and kissed her and kissed her and Katya brought Trixie back in. She wrapped her arms around her, covering and protecting her in the way that would have always been second nature to her, even if they had never fucked, never shared more than what their other friends did. 

“I’m still a bit pissed, y’know. This doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.” Trixie grumbled against Katya’s collar bone, the upturn of her smile a gentle tug on her cooling skin. 

“As long as you know I never meant to hurt you.” Katya squeezed her tighter to accentuate her point. 

“Yeah, you’re not the evil beast you like to think you are. Anyway, you know I only like being hurt in one very specific place…” 

Katya huffed a laugh across Trixie’s forehead, following it with kisses. She rained them down on her, a confetti of endearment, and promised to be more forthcoming with her in the future. “It was just so fucking _daunting_. I’m up against a whole load of obstacles.” 

Trixie frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean it in a bad way or, like, that I’m, uh, blaming you.” She rushed out. “You just— you’re so driven, focussed, on your projects, what you believe in and work for. I, I admire that. Truly. You know I’m a scatty loser at the best of times but you just, I dunno, you have your priorities and for as much as you say you’re all Pollyanna and think you’ve found your fuckin’ soulmate, you lose interest in people in favour of the next protest or think piece you’re writing or whatever. You downplay your relationships every time you’re in one so much that I’d hate for that to be me, so I didn’t, uh, sacrifice myself for that. I didn’t even entertain it until recently, when I started to question if I could be the one who’s different. And then it just seemed fanciful.” 

Trixie sat up, holding the sheets in a tight grip over her chest. Katya’s heart plummeted. 

“I’m really that horrible, am I?”

Katya sat up too, stared at the tired slope of Trixie’s spine. Her tongue felt thick and heavy and useless in her mouth, caught behind chattering, nervous teeth. “No, that’s not what I’m saying—”

“But it kind of is, isn’t it? I’m so absorbed in what I do that I don’t give myself over to what I feel.”

“Those are your words, not mine.” Katya forced out, defensive. She grabbed a pillow and hugged it, replacing Trixie. “It think it’s fuckin’ impossible to do what we just did and say you don’t give yourself over to what you feel. That, _that_ , was full of feeling and I, uh, I want to inspire that kind of feeling in you every day, forever. Just me, because I hope I’m the only one who can.”

“Of course you can. You do...you idiot.” Trixie rested her weight on her arm so she could look back and show off her earnestness. “You just hit a nerve, saying all that, ‘cause I know it’s true. But it’s probably because I’m horrendously in love with you and nobody else stands a chance when I have you around, keeping me on my toes. Everyone’s boring in comparison.” She rolled her eyes like the mere thought of the general populous was tiresome, whereas Katya was quite the opposite. “I won’t ever give up the zine or stop throwing myself into a cause for you, and I won’t start being nice and, like, palatable and pleasant and you know that and that’s what’s so real about us. So if we keep on how we’ve been keepin’ on but we stop fucking around - literally - and actually commit to each other, then I don’t see how I could ever undermine that because that’s what I’ve wanted pretty much since we met.”

Katya leant forwards, placing her hand on top of Trixie’s and honing in on the point at which they joined, where she could keep her still, there, and hers. “For real?” She asked, unable to meet Trixie’s eyes for fear of the insecurity so visible in her own.

“For real. You burst in all chaotic and carefree, like nothing was stopping you on your adventure, and it was like you owned the place even though you’d never set foot in there before. I dunno, you enchanted all of us that night, and everyone still tells you, but you sure put a spell on me, witchy woman.”

“Woo hoo, she got the moon in her eyes!” Katya sang, badly as ever, sending them both into fits of laughter, into a tight embrace. 

They got up eventually and stole kisses as they got ready, lending each other accessories and makeup. Trixie helped Katya with her hair so both of theirs spiked tall, intimidating and downright cool, and Katya altered Trixie’s top when it wasn’t sitting quite right on her chest. She toned down her cheeky comments and playful touches for the moment, settling into the feeling of reciprocation, a placidity neither of them had lived with before. 

It was a relief to have aired all her worries, the emotions she had ignored and pushed to the very back of her closet like the skeleton of a former victim. But it was also glaringly obvious, now they had both spelled it out, how they had been destined to disclose to each other sooner or later. Katya’s life was infinitely better for having Trixie in it. They didn’t prioritise each other because they didn’t need to. Trixie was always there, even when she was busy, and Katya was by Trixie’s side even if she was two, three, a hundred miles apart in any which way.

They emerged holding hands and Katya felt downright euphoric, tightening her grip before kissing Trixie’s knuckles one by one. It wasn’t as if she didn’t ever want to let go. She did. Because now she was assured that Trixie would always return to her and her alone. 

They were wearing matching leather cuffs with silver studs and Katya had gone all out, pinning as many chains as she could onto the safety pin by her mouth. It didn’t hurt anymore. She had asked Trixie to do her makeup, getting her to arch her eyebrows a little higher than usual, to flick her black lipstick out slightly. She didn’t need to paint on a smile but she wanted everyone around them to see it. She wanted to flaunt. She wanted to celebrate.

Bob noticed them first, noticed the change before anyone else had even seen them. She screamed and Trixie screamed back and soon, amongst the choruses of ‘what’s going on?’’ and ‘can you save that energy for later tonight?’, Katya spun Trixie on the spot, pulled her in and kissed her, hand on her cheek, heart in her hands. 

Pearl and Violet were second to run up to them and demand a run down of events and then everyone there, friends new and old, were listening to Trixie tell their tale, recount how, from the very moment they met, they had connected and it had all led to the present, the conflict but, most importantly, the resolution. The only gripe that Katya had was that she couldn’t remember her first proclamation of how much she loved Trixie but Bob chimed in, assuring her that she sure would remember the rest of them, despite how old she was getting. 

“Ugh, you’re both _disgusting_ and I love it.” Juno added and it was quickly decided that they were to get absolutely hammered before leaving for the night. 

“I might even get a bottle of champagne if y’all behave yourselves. Just one bottle, mind, we ain’t made of money up in here.” Monet warned, staring everyone down before laughing at their protests and dramatic pleas and snatching her purse off the counter to head out to the liquor store. Bob went with her (always a rule) and, in their absence, Trixie and Katya received a heartfelt toast (“To dykes in boring monogamous love!”) with the leftover beer and whatever else they could scramble to find. 

Katya was enough of a narcissist to enjoy all the attention being on them and she kept the others entertained with interjections to Trixie’s otherwise expansive narrative, thinking of what their people back home would say when they returned, how undoubtedly happy - if not downright smug - they’d be. And then it hit her, that they would have to go back and navigate their normal, daily lives as a unit instead of two people pretending not to be. It wasn’t off putting or out of her reach but she nonetheless got flutters in her stomach, picturing the both of them at the bar, working side by side and clocking their hours and each coming home with no one else in tow.

It was nice to imagine. Thrilling, even. But she bet her bottom dollar that it would be a billion times better to actually experience, to live it and keep living it until her time was up. Sometimes things got dangerous and sometimes it seemed like revolution and anarchy really was around the corner, that there was hope for what she and her chosen family believed in. Being together wasn’t going to solve their problems, on a macro or micro scale, but it sure made it a little easier to know for sure that they were fighting in each other’s corner, one hundred percent, and that there was forever safety in numbers. 

True to Juno’s word, they all did get hammered and left for CBGB’s later than they had planned. When they got there, they had to stand nearer the back but Katya didn’t mind. Although she wasn’t tall enough to see much of what was happening in front of her, she was rather preoccupied by Trixie, her beauty and her solidity at her side, the way her hand roamed every part of her she could and tried to touch her where she was most sensitive, like she had done on the dancefloor at Peppermint’s. The memory drove Katya wild with recollection and she was glad of the small intermission of privacy she was afforded now they were out of the spotlight, just waiting for it to shine onto the stage one last time. There was a party and one hell of a night ahead of them and it was clear it would probably be the wildest of her life. Nevertheless, she got the same kind of gratification from the assurance that, no matter the event, she had Trixie to leave it with. 

-

Driving out of New York was difficult. It was uncertain when they would get the chance to visit again. Being remote from the action of the ‘Big Apple’ reinforced how far away they were from some of the people they loved most, but, to Katya at least, it also reminded her that there were women like her all across the country - the world - who would somehow meet one way or another. Trixie had asked Katya if she wanted to swap details with Violet and Pearl and Katya had eagerly said yes, and so it didn’t feel like a goodbye when Violet’s car overtook theirs and went its separate direction on the highway. They waved until they could no longer see Pearl’s hand out of the passenger seat window and laughed at something funny she had said the night before, made funnier by her monotonous delivery. 

Then, they were silent for a while, absorbing everything that had happened that past week. Katya fixed her hands firmly in her lap, slouching in her seat with her feet each side of the car mat, knees flopped inwards and resting against each other. Trixie’s back was straight as she peered over the steering wheel, cursing a bad driver under her breath when she had to slam the brakes on, the low grumble of the engine doing little to disguise her disregard. Katya grinned to herself and played with the hemline of her tartan skirt. She had linked all her chains to the right side of it so they didn’t get in the way of Trixie changing gears. 

It had been early afternoon when they had emerged from their bed, sheets tangled, hair messy, makeup all down their face and all over their bodies where they had kissed each other, drunk more from the ecstasy of their new found status than from any alcohol. They had made a conscious effort to be the first ones to use the shower and Katya had left Trixie in the bathroom to put on her outfit before Trixie could figure out the trick up her sleeve (her skirt) that she had decided to save for the right point during their journey later that day.

Katya felt a strange sense of deja vu as she looked over at Trixie, a rant about how men felt like they owned the roads as well as “every-fucking-thing else” about to leap out from behind her bare, balmed lips. She waited for her to segue into some other complaint, the shake of her fist or wave of her hand to accentuate her argument. It didn’t come. Instead, Trixie glanced at her and stopped dead in her tracks. 

“What?” Katya prompted.

“Nothing, I just like you.” 

Katya jolted, erupting in hysterics. She only just about remembered to keep her hands in position so her skirt didn’t fly up in the breeze coming in through the sliver of open window at her side. She let out a few bemused screams instead and listened to Trixie’s accompanying cackles. 

“And I realised,” Trixie added when they had calmed down, “That I do get preoccupied with a few things that don’t really matter in the end. Like, that asshole. Who cares when I’ve got this hot piece of bony ass all sprawled out next to me?”

Katya wriggled about laughing all over again, squeezing her thighs together as she coughed, loud and unbecoming.

Their journey seemed to speed by despite how Trixie made the conscious effort not to rush. They both professed how they didn’t want their trip to end and that, even though they had to be home by the following night, ready to get back to work the afternoon after, what they did until then was entirely up to them. It might have been hasty, but the freedom Katya had found in having her secret revealed brought an ease to which she viewed the places they drove through and were due to stop at. She knew they weren’t invincible and that they hadn’t changed how the world operated through their own development but she wasn’t about to extinguish the confidence it ignited in her. 

The route they had decided on was slightly different to the one they had taken to get to Bob’s. They went through upstate New York and took the I-86 up to Cleveland, driving beside Lake Erie in the pitch black of night and watching, when they could catch a glimpse, as the water shimmered and reflected the moonlight, oily but enticing. 

Katya directed Trixie to a restaurant parking lot. She got out to check if the menu had something for her, when it did, she motioned for Trixie to join her by the entrance. She had to control how she walked. Used to taking long, fast strides, she ambled instead, keeping her hands by the sides of her thighs. She was thankful ten times over that it wasn’t windy and was even more relieved when they were seated without having to wait, crossing her legs under the table of their booth. It made her feel a lot more feminine than she normally did and she didn’t dislike it, primarily because she couldn’t wait for Trixie’s reaction when she eventually figured out what Katya had been hiding. 

“I’ve loved being at Bob’s but I can’t wait for it just to be us at the motel so we can fuck without potentially getting interrupted by Violet and Pearl or whoever.” Trixie said over her large beer and the nachos they had ordered to start, oblivious to the patrons a few feet away who could no doubt hear her. “It’s such a cool set up there and I know Bob is, like, really proud of what she’s managed to give to people who need it, and it’ll sound lame of me but, I dunno, I’m glad I have my own place, y’know, somewhere I don’t need to be on. I can just be. No specific behaviour, no expectations.”

Katya nodded in full understanding. “Me too. I’ve always said this is why you’re the perfect friend or, well, whatever now, I’m not sure how you want to be referred to in relation to me, and it doesn’t really matter anyway, but, uh, it’s, uh, it’s just great to know you’re there but I don’t need you to be there a hundred percent of the time. Especially not now I know I, uh, have you.”

Trixie placed her drink on a soggy beer mat, patterned by the droplets of condensation that had run down to imprint themselves on its surface. Katya watched her bite her lip. She wasn’t trying to contain the smile growing and growing so Katya supposed she was considering just what to say in return that didn’t involve them deciding to flee in a frenzy of near-instant arousal. 

“You do have me, yes.” She settled on, voice slow and careful. She dumped her chin on the palm of her hand. “And you can take me however you want once we’ve eaten. I’m starving.”

“So am I.” Katya smirked and Trixie’s laugh reached the ceiling. 

They got through dinner without acting completely indecent and they decided to walk down to Edgewater Park Beach before it closed. It was cold out and, much to Katya’s annoyance, a breeze swept its way through the trees and along the winding path that led them to the waterfront. It was getting increasingly more difficult to prevent any exposure. The only silver lining was that there was barely anyone else around. As Katya started to hear the lap of water against the rocks, which formed a jagged pier pointing out towards where the sky lay atop it, their solitude stretched and widened and the beach was, at such a late hour, theirs.

Hands held, Katya crushed her side to Trixie’s as they made their way to the sands. She checked one last time that they were alone and, when they were roughly halfway to the shoreline, she stopped. “Stay there.” Katya ordered.

“Oh- _kay_.” 

Katya let go and began to skip in front of Trixie, towards where the sand turned darker, more sturdy, and where the stars hung directly over her head, crowning her in Trixie’s eyeline. She opened her arms out, embracing the elements she had previously tried to resist, and spun on the spot, screeching as she got dizzier and dizzier, oblivious to whatever Trixie was doing or feeling now Katya’s saucy little secret was all too visible.

She slowed down and faced the horizon, unsteady but ecstatic on her booted feet, and waited for what Trixie would do in response, inhaling heavily so the chill of the night made its way into her lungs, cooling her where it could. Strands of her hair caught in her mouth and, before she could pull them away, Trixie had her hands on her, turning her around, grabbing her face and kissing her deep and dirty and desperately. 

“You fucking whore.” Trixie sniggered against her lips, their noses bumping as Trixie jostled them.

“What? I ran out of clean underwear.” Katya pretended, yet innocence was never believable on her. 

“Two pairs is not enough! I told you!” 

Trixie’s exclamation spread into the open air and Katya basked in it, holding Trixie’s hands and sidestepping so the two of them made uneven circles in the sand, tripping up here and there as they whirled until Trixie fell back, out of breath, onto the ground. Katya huffed a final laugh as Trixie yelled, “Oh my god, Katya, you freak.”

“All day, Trix, all day and you had no idea.” Katya rounded Trixie’s body, coming to stand by her head, almost close enough to graze her ear with her shoe. Trixie stared up at her and Katya caught the flush on her face, the thickening of the atmosphere like the beach was cradling them, encouraging their affinity. “I want to sit on your face.” Katya stated plainly. 

Trixie didn’t reply, just tilted her head back and flicked out her tongue, ready for her.

Katya threw her jacket aside, ignoring the goosebumps rising on her arms, and got to her knees, admiring how her skirt fanned out down Trixie’s chest as she lowered herself inch by inch. Trixie wound her arms around Katya’s thighs, shuffling into a better position, Trixie’s nose tickling the curve of her ass cheek and nearing towards her hole. It taunted Katya, not being able to see what Trixie was about to do, not knowing exactly what part of her her tongue would curl against, but she embraced the unknown as she closed the miniscule gap between them.

Trixie circled her entrance, tracing it one way then the other, so slowly that Katya had to groan like she was being hard done by. “Trixie.” She sighed, twitchy in her desire to smother her, to rock her hips already. She held back, if only to give Trixie a chance to acclimatise, crane her neck further so Katya felt Trixie’s laboured breaths against a part of her no one else ever touched. 

She didn’t regret the women before. She showed them dedication and respect and what eroticism meant outside of the male gaze, outside of any male involvement. And, of course, there were the few who showed her a thing or two, too. She expanded her repertoire over the years but it was Trixie who pushed her boundaries because she was the one to take care of them the most - the one Katya really wanted to explore them with.

Katya held onto control in the bedroom like she did a whip. Every now and then, Trixie took it from her and gave it back with the kind of care that evoked an evolving desire to hand it over more and more. With her knees buried in the sand, she rocked her hips back and forth and with each movement she loosened, relaxed into Trixie’s pace, letting her steer them both. Trixie dragged her tongue up one side of her to her clit. Katya angled herself so Trixie could suck over her mound, starting softly and interspersing kisses to her inner thighs. Katya moaned as she swirled her tongue around and shoved her hands down Trixie’s top, underneath her bra, to squeeze her breasts, roll her nipples and tug on her piercings just roughly enough to elicit a gasp against her cunt. 

Katya kept her grip on her as she began to rotate her hips again, moving forwards every now and then so Trixie could lick into her, then further so she brought her wetness to dampen in between her cheeks. Even if Katya didn’t want to intensify what they were doing, she could count on Trixie to play with her limits, to suggest, to remind her of her options and that she was always keen to please her. As if Katya could forget.

Trixie pressed her face more insistently against her, a sign she was becoming just as riled up as Katya was, so Katya shut her eyes, cut the trance of watching Trixie writhe beneath her and handed herself over to the heat pooling in her stomach, the burn at the tops of her thighs, the clench deep within her. She came, hunching over, her release seeping out onto Trixie’s lips, out into the midnight sky, the unfettered waves. 

She tumbled forwards, flattening her hands and stretching out, burying her fingers underneath the sand as she twitched and caught her breath. She felt Trixie place barely-there kisses against wherever on her body she could reach until she deemed her recovered enough to push her skirt right up, exposing all of her. She cleaned her up with her tongue. Katya hung her head with her hair dangling down like tangled seaweed as Trixie seemingly caught every last drop of her before she pointed the tip of her tongue to reach Katya’s hole, to where Trixie had teased earlier. She didn’t dip in. Katya couldn’t decide if she wanted her to or not, coming back to the reality of where she was, how they could be seen. Such an intimacy was for Trixie’s eyes (tongue, fingers) only and so she knelt up and away from her face, and spun around to look down at her. 

There were tears streaming down Trixie’s cheeks, made more distinct by the moonlight directing its omnipresence upon her like a blessing, a caress Katya wanted to give instead. Her heart had been hammering from their revelry, their bliss, but then the rhythm of it changed, the instant Katya caught sight of Trixie crying.

“What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” She rushed out, wild and panicked.

Trixie huffed a laugh and sniffed, reaching out to clasp Katya’s hand, still covered in sand. “No, these are good tears. Emotional tears. I’m feeling things, ok? Shut up.” She hiccuped as more spilled over and her grin widened, especially when Katya cursed her for worrying her so. 

“I thought I’d, I dunno, suffocated you with my pussy or something.” She screeched, deliberately high pitched to make Trixie embody her delirium again. 

“No,” Trixie took Katya’s other hand too, slotting their fingers together, “I just love you so much.”

“Gross.” Katya quipped as she tilted forwards, hovering her lips over Trixie’s. She glanced into Trixie’s eyes, watery and glassy like a mirror, before dipping her head and kissing her. She held their fists to her chest and deepened the kiss, sliding her tongue against Trixie’s, tasting herself, tasting what it meant to be free. “I love you.” She whispered, over and over until the waves and the wind and the susurration of trees behind them tranquilised, left them to their affirmations, synchronously keeping them protected and cherished.

Katya held onto as much of Trixie as physically possible as they stumbled back to the car to drive to a motel for the night. Katya had never wanted her as much, now she had her, whole and undamaged by Katya’s clutches at fidelity. There was liberty in being linked to only each other and it still amazed her that she had second guessed herself so much that her timidity had bled into Trixie too. Trixie had wanted exactly what she had. The notion was more marvelling the more she thought about it and if it weren’t for the barrelling urgency to strip Trixie naked and show her just how much she loved her and hungered for her, then she would have sat with her own mind, comfortable and content, for hours, replaying Trixie’s acceptance of her and her reciprocated admissions. 

Katya couldn’t take her eyes off of Trixie, just about managing to count her money to pay at the front desk then speeding along bland corridors until they reached their room. It was pitch black outside so Trixie headed straight to close the curtains whilst Katya put their bags down and brushed off all the residual sand. It took a while for them both to be rid of it and they smirked to each other as they took off their clothes, making lewd comments about finding stubborn grains in all their crevices for weeks to come. 

“What a memento for this trip, hey?” Trixie bumped her bare hip against Katya’s, prompting her to look down at the chipped bathroom tiles which were dotted with gritty specks. 

“Postcards from my vagina.” Katya pulled a creepy face in the mirror at Trixie and washed Trixie’s hands for her before doing her own. 

Leading her by the wrist, Katya brought her back to the bedroom. Part of her wished to carry Trixie over the threshold but it seemed cheap and gimmicky and so she simply let her pull back the bedcovers and arrange the pillows to her liking, watching her inhabit their temporary space and make it theirs for the night. 

“Are you quite done?” Katya jokingly prompted, folding her arms and widening her stance to reinforce her act of impatience, the dominance that had always attracted Trixie to her. Relentlessly. She felt it too, of course, but for as much as she wanted to fuck Trixie senseless, she could also never tire of observing her doing her thing, the tough and the delicate. She touched both sides of her and Katya yearned to keep bringing them together so Trixie didn’t need to be fragmented, around her or anyone else. 

“What, are you waiting for something?” Trixie affected, raising her brows to challenge, to jumpstart. 

“I’ve done enough of that, thanks.” 

Trixie rolled her eyes but softened, crawling onto the mattress, to the opposite side where Katya stood, thighs pressed against the edge of the bed. Trixie reached her, tilted her head to the side and placed open mouthed kisses up her thigh, across her hip, up towards her belly button, then her ribs, her breasts. Trixie sucked on her nipple and Katya sank her fingers into Trixie’s hair, breaking through the stiffness, the style, to massage her scalp and encourage her further. 

Trixie’s hands roamed her back and Katya tugged on her hair in instant response, a silent conversation of back and forth, equal contribution. 

Sighing, Katya told Trixie to lie back, following her without pause so their bodies aligned - not perfectly, but more than enough to fulfill, to worship. Katya kissed up the centre of Trixie’s chest, licking at the base of her throat before nosing under her jaw, breathing her in and savouring her. There was no rush. There was no possibility of sharing her with someone else later that night, that week. Life wasn’t certain but how she felt in that moment definitely was, and that was more than enough to drive her, keep her spirited and alive. 

Katya made her way to lick into Trixie’s open mouth, taking advantage. They kissed and panted and Katya rutted into her, filthily and without hesitance. 

“Get on top of me.” Katya said through a moan, surprising Trixie by her instruction.

“Really?”

Katya explained exactly how she wanted her. Trixie came to rest the back of her head on the same pillow as Katya, a little further up as she was taller, her back to Katya’s chest and her legs spread wide, a little bent and hooked around Katya’s. Katya had to convince her that she wasn’t being crushed and although she couldn’t breathe as freely, the expansion of her chest pushing up into Trixie was more than enough to nourish her. 

She trailed her fingers down Trixie’s stomach as if she was touching herself. She knew Trixie liked being softly scratched, however, so she pressed the crescents of her nails into the thick of Trixie’s inner thighs and drew them upwards, slowly, teasingly. Trixie tipped her head back further and Katya smiled into the kiss she gave her. Trixie’s pulse jumped beneath Katya’s upturned lips. Katya repeated her movements, etching a keepsake of her presence onto Trixie’s skin. The marks would quickly fade, perhaps even in seconds, yet there were other reminders more permanent that Katya favoured.

She circled the heart tattoo and asked Trixie to open her eyes and watch her. “So you can see,” She mumbled against Trixie’s cheek, feeling it heat, “That I’ve pointed at how I love you, bitten at it, tried to show you in all sorts of colours, even when I maybe hadn’t realised that that’s what I was doing.”

“Oh my god.” Trixie tried to cant her hips up as Katya dug her nails in with more force.

“Telling you was the logical next step.” She nibbled on Trixie’s earlobe, if only to stop herself from talking more than what was necessary. “But you, only you, know that for all that I think, I feel. And it was so fucking much, sometimes, and it didn’t match my image, but none of that matters because I’m fucking lucky to love you. It’s been hard but it’s not hard, because it’s you.” 

“I’m going to come just from your voice if you carry on like this.” Trixie strained to say. 

“Don’t deprive me of my fun.”

Trixie turned her head, so suddenly Katya worried she’d topple off of her, to look right in Katya’s eyes. “There’s no harm in romance. I’ll get better at it now that I really want it, and I won’t take you for granted. Ever. No one’s as fucking weird and hot as you.”

Katya beamed at her, her face all fuzzy for how close she was. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Yeah right, everyone’s always up your ass. Sucks for them that I’m the only one you actually want there.” 

Katya laughed into Trixie’s hair, coaxing her to settle back. She wrapped her arm around Trixie’s front, her other hand making its own wandering path across Trixie’s body, wherever she fancied. She passed her palm over where Trixie’s pubic hair began, returning her touches to her breasts, her waist. There wasn’t enough of her to honour. There was more than enough. Contradictions kept them both wrapped up in one another. 

Trixie begged Katya to fuck her. Katya didn’t need asking twice. She slid her fingers down through her hair, down to where she was warm and wet and ready for her, almost suffering from it, and she rubbed at her clit, coating her, coating herself. They weren’t at the right angle for Katya to get inside her but it didn’t matter, the sounds Trixie was making encompassing them both like they were as powerful as nature. The way she quivered and whined and demanded that Katya go faster, kiss her neck, wasn’t a vital spurring on but Katya appreciated anything she gave her, and she, therefore, gave back in droves. 

She changed her pattern, wanting to catch the hitch of Trixie’s breath in a kiss but unable to crane her neck or tear her eyes away from where she had her hand and where Trixie kept lifting her hips to meet Katya’s slipping fingers. 

Trixie came and Katya almost got the smothering she reassured Trixie she wouldn’t. The crush of Trixie’s lower back into her pubic bone hurt, as did the collapse of her shoulder blades against her collar bones. It was exquisite, the evidence of a shared reality, and the imperfections of perfect moments. 

Trixie soon rolled off her, onto her side, and brought Katya that way too. Katya wiggled her big toe against Trixie’s foot as she watched her milden, the blush of her cheeks diluting to a more bleary pink. She brushed an errant strand of hair from Trixie’s cooling forehead. Katya still got unsurpassable satisfaction from seeing her so debauched. 

“You ok there?”

Trixie nodded. “But don’t talk to me like that again during sex if you want me to last longer than a few minutes, holy shit.”

“I’ll do what I want.” Katya fired back, pulling her in and kissing her brow, her nose, her cupid’s bow, the side of her mouth and her chin. She kissed the pout off Trixie’s lips then brought her fingers to her own, sucking them down. “This won’t take long either.” She said as she directed Trixie’s hand between her legs, working in tandem with her to get off. Her orgasm was short but intense and she kissed Trixie through it, tension draining out of her. She relaxed into the pillow and closed her eyes, Trixie’s whispers soothing her like a tender spell. 

They went to sleep entwined and drifted apart in the night. But, by morning time, they found their way back together. Katya knew it didn’t mean anything yet she took it as a clear indication anyway. Because Trixie had even said it herself - there was no harm in romance. 

-

The I-90 was a bit of a nightmare. It had been fine until they hit rush hour and then it seemed like they were trapped for eternity, moving an inch or so before coming to a standstill again. It tested Trixie’s patience and Katya spent all her energy keeping her entertained. 

About an hour outside of Chicago was where Katya discovered she could trick Trixie into believing she was being really sincere about something she was haranguing about, whereas she was actually taking the piss and discovering how long it would take for Trixie to twig. She had come up with a formula. First, she repeated a certain phrase Trixie stressed, matching her tone. Then, when Trixie moved onto the next complaint, Katya responded with a not-so-subtly sarcastic “ _absolutely_ ”. The final component was to lean forward in her seat at an odd angle so she could stare intently at Trixie’s face and, with great success, Katya achieved her goal. 

“I will fucking beat the shit out of you!” Trixie banged her fist against the steering wheel when she realised what Katya was playing at. They both broke out in hysterics and Katya had the sudden urge to stick her head out of the window like an overly enthusiastic dog. 

“Mary, you couldn’t take me.” Katya said with only one side of her mouth, having placed an unlit cigarette between her conniving lips. 

“Oh but I do. Sometimes.” 

Katya couldn’t disagree. She lit up, blowing the smoke into the fresh air and cackling at Trixie’s exasperation when a sudden gust blew it back into the car. “You’re gonna murder me, aren’t you? We managed a week but this last bit of the journey’s gonna do you in.” 

“It’s fine, I’ll be acquitted. The jury’ll take one look at that jacket and send you down for crimes against fashion.”

“Oof, that was bad. You’re losing your touch.” 

Trixie didn’t take her eyes off the road but flung her arm out to slap at Katya haphazardly. “That’s what happens when I spend too much time in your wretched company.” 

Katya took a long, slow drag, catching how goofy she looked in the wing mirror. “Wow, our honeymoon period soon wore off.” 

“It never even started. We’ve not figured out my veil situation yet, remember?”

Katya smiled all the way into the city.

They stopped off at their favourite place for food, an underground vegetarian kitchen run by a women’s group. Nothing on the menu had a price as it was based on donation, on what the customer could reasonably afford, and everyone who worked there were volunteers. The building it was beneath reminded Katya of Bob’s and an unsuspecting sadness washed over her as she got a table for herself and Trixie, carrying her homemade tarka dal over on a wooden tray. She hadn’t experienced the kind of loss that came with leaving a place she loved, having been so eager to escape suburban Massachusetts all those years ago. But, as she watched Trixie give the butch woman at the counter double the normal price of a dish like hers, she pictured all the trips they could take in the future, not only back to Bob’s, but to Violet and Pearl’s and beyond.

By the time Trixie sat down, Katya had replenished her sense of hope and wondered, one day, perhaps when the punk movement as she knew it had dwindled or evolved into something new, whether the two of them would become carefree vagabonds with a different intention to work towards, political or not. 

“What’s got you looking like this?” Trixie probed, dubious but no less amused, before filling her mouth full of food and groaning from how tasty it was. 

Katya explained her thoughts and, while Trixie joked that just because they had taken one roadtrip didn’t mean they were now travellers, she did concede that Katya’s ideas weren’t at all unobtainable, but enticing, even. 

“I’d go anywhere with you, though. We could hang out by the dumpsters - your home, ha - and I’d still have a blast.”

“Bizarre, how love works, isn’t it?” Katya jested, sliding her leg against Trixie’s under the table. 

It was late by the time they got back in the car but the route home was a familiar one and they sat in silence as the underwhelming, recognisable landmarks of it came and went. Every now and then, Trixie placed her hand on Katya’s thigh or Katya took Trixie’s hand from the wheel and squeezed it, or her forearm. Katya watched Trixie steer, how she relaxed back into her seat when she drove past the big Harley Davidson shop, the gateway to the east of the city where they both resided. 

“Home sweet home.” Trixie sighed, looking down the road they had turned onto, taking them away from the centre, the bigger crowds and demands, to quieter streets and shabbier exteriors. 

They arrived at Katya’s place first and, when Trixie parked up, neither of them made a move to get out of the car. They glanced at each other and grinned and Katya perked up with the glint of an impromptu idea. “Want to go for one last little adventure?”

Trixie let out a long scream laugh like Katya had read her mind. Katya took her face in her hands and kissed her, insistently and hard as if they were still pressed for time. They weren’t. Trixie pulled back, asking where she was thinking of, before stealing another brief kiss. She planted her hands back on the wheel, awaiting Katya’s direction.

“Anywhere,” She said, “Just drive."


End file.
